Despite fears of worsening relations with the newly re-united Russian Orthodox Church, the head of Russia's Catholic community has welcomed the recent unification of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia  (Rocor). "The healing of the schism will have a deep peace-making effect on the entire Russian society, on the hearts and minds of our compatriots living both in Russia and outside of it," said Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. He dismissed fears that the conservative Rocor would stop Catholic-Orthodox talks in Russia. "On the contrary, I hope the pact would spur dialogue between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic Churches," he said.

Ecumenism and the Moscow Patriarchate's involvement in the World Council of Churches (WCC) remain the most contentious issues between the Orthodox branches. "We will continue opposing ecumenism in the Orthodox world as we have always done," Archpriest Alexander Lebedev, the secretary of the Rocor commission for negotiations with the Moscow Patriarchate, said. He added that Rocor would "of course" welcome Moscow leaving the WCC and denounced all "harmful sides of ecumenism, such as syncretism, and common liturgical prayer".

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, trying to allay Rocor anxieties, said Moscow will continue to "witness Orthodoxy" through "well-measured" ecumenical activities. He hoped that Rocor clergy would join the Moscow

Patriarchate's work in this area. "Now that we have signed the unification act, we need to clearly realise that we are one Church, which means that our decision-making should be in common," Metropolitan Kirill said.

According to Nikolai Savchenko, a priest with the Church abroad, some 20 to 25 per cent of Rocor faithful disapprove of the unification. The Moscow Patriarchate covers about two-thirds of Russia's population of 142 million and has branches in most of the former Soviet republics.

(See Konstantin Eggert, page 15.)