Orthodox lambast Ukraine Catholics

A Russian Orthodox leader has bitterly attacked Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, as a Catholic bishop warned of growing pressure against clergy and laity in the country’s Russian-occupied Crimea region, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“This Church arose as a special project by the Catholic Church to convert the Orthodox to Catholicism – it allowed the Orthodox to keep their rituals, while forcing them to accept Catholic dogmas and submit to the pope,” said Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign relations director. “When this didn’t happen, the Catholics sought help from secular powers to persecute the Orthodox. This is also happening in the present conflict.”

The 48-year-old metropolitan made his claims on the Rossiya-24 TV channel as Catholic and Orthodox representatives met in Amman for a plenary session of the International Commission for Theological Dialogue. He said the Vatican had insisted it was powerless to resolve “problems” with Greek Catholics because they enjoyed autonomy. Rome nevertheless approved Greek Catholic appointments. Negotiations on “theoretical issues” such as papal primacy and collegiality would make little progress unless it was first understood “why the wounds are still bloody”, Hilarion said.

Greek Catholic Bishop Bohdan Dziurach told The Tablet criticisms of his Church showed the Moscow Patriarchate was being “instrumentalised by [President Vladimir] Putin in his fight against Ukraine”. “These claims are dangerous because they appear to want to widen the conflict into a religious one,” he said.