Church in the World

New leader of Church in Russia

Russia

In an apparent attempt to turn a new page in Orthodox-Catholic relations, Pope Benedict XVI appointed a new head of Russia's Catholics on Friday, write Josef Pazderka and Jonathan Luxmoore.

Fr Paolo Pezzi, 47, who is Italian and has lived and worked in Russia for 10 years, will replace Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who has been appointed Archbishop of Minsk in Belarus, where he earlier served as apostolic administrator. According to the Russian newspaper Nezavissimaya Gazeta, the Moscow Patriarchate had a slightly negative attitude towards Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, who was of Polish origin. Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, said: "We hope the two Churches will be able to finally switch from unbrotherly rivalry to sincere, genuinely Christian relations and mutual support, which must become the basis for full, unclouded cooperation."

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said that maintaining good relations with the Russian Orthodox Church would be the key task of his successor. "Today is not the time to throw stones around, it is time to pick up these stones."

Fr Pezzi studied philosophy and theology in 1985-90 at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome. From 1993 to 1998, he served as an apostolic administrator in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and worked as editor-in-chief of the Sibirskaya Katolicheskaya Gazeta (Siberian Catholic Newspaper). 

Catholics in Belarus have cautiously welcomed the appointment of Archbishop Kondrusiewicz as Archbishop of Minsk-Mogilev after his 16 years as head of the Church in Russia, but many felt he could face difficulties with President Lukashenko's authoritarian regime. A Catholic philosopher from Minsk, Piotr Rudkouski, told the Prague-based Radio Svoboda: "The Government's logic here is simple: it has nothing against religious initiatives, so long as everything remains under its control."