Russia’s Orthodox Patriarch has been made an honorary citizen of Bari in Italy to mark the repatriation of relics of St Nicholas, which more than 2.5 million people in Russia viewed during a three-month display.
The gesture came as the Russian Church published a new compendium of its doctrine on faith and moral issues, which gives strong backing to the pursuit of ecumenical ties.
“Handing over our city’s keys has a great meaning in our culture – it means heartfelt affections to a loved one,” said Archbishop Francesco Cacucci of Bari-Bitonto in a speech carried on the archdiocesan website. “We could not imagine the intensity with which this event has been lived out, in Moscow and St Petersburg, but also through positive reactions in Bari.”
The archbishop spoke during a meeting in St Petersburg last Friday with Patriarch Kirill, before returning home with the relics of the early-fourth century saint, which President Vladimir Putin and other Russian government members also venerated.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, praised the loan of the relics as a “great ecumenical event”. He said he believed it would strengthen the commitment of Catholic and Orthodox Christians to dialogue. “It’s good for heads of our Churches to meet,” the Swiss cardinal told the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano. “It is also very important that church people do the same.”
The return of the relics, whose tour of Russia was arranged during the Pope’s historic talks in February 2016 with Patriarch Kirill in Cuba, coincided with the release of the Russian Orthodox catechism. Commissioned from a team of theologians in 2008, the document – believed to be the first to codify all areas of church teaching since the 1820s – was completed in January. It is to be presented for approval by the Church’s Holy Synod, and by Orthodox hierarchies linked to the Moscow Patriarchate abroad.
Besides setting out official doctrine on faith, liturgy, canonical order, and on moral and social teachings, including freedom and human rights, the document supports ecumenical ties with Catholic and other non-Orthodox communities. It defends the Russian Church’s past participation in dialogue against opposition from Greece, Bulgaria and other more hardline hierarchies. “The Church condemns those who deliberately pervert the Orthodox Church’s duty to give witness to the non-Orthodox world”, says the Catechism.
Catholic-Orthodox ties are to be discussed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, during a 21-23 August visit to Moscow. Cardinal Parolin told Italy’s Sole24Ore daily that he hoped to explore a possible papal visit to Russia with Patriarch Kirill and President Putin.
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