“We are ready for dialogue on Church-related topics with the Patriarchate of Moscow”, declared these past days Igor Kowalewski, Secretary of the Russian Bishops Conference, emphasizing that the Church is ready to dialogue with the Orthodox not only at the level of the relations between the Vatican and the Patriarchate of Moscow but also at local level, in Russia. Kowalewski pointed out that “ecclesial discussion represents the present topic of dialogue not only between the different Christian Churches. Also within the very Orthodox Church the so-called canonical territories of the various and autonomous Orthodox Churches are object of debate.” In the past few days, Metropolitan bishop of Smolensk and Kaliningrad Kyrill, affirmed: “we will always reject the existence of Catholic dioceses on the territory of Russia and will consider them a challenge to our mutual idea of fidelity to the territorial principle of ecclesiastic power”, according to Rev. Kowalewski there is the need “for serious theological dialogue”. The Secretary of Russia’s Bishops Conference expressed his hope that the Russian Orthodox Church may understand that the erection of diocese on ex- USSR land in place of apostolic administrations willed by Pope John Paul II in 2002, “was neither a sign of proselytism nor a threat against the Orthodox Church”. In commenting the words of Metropolitan Kyrill, Msgr. Jerzy Mazur, ordinary of the diocese of Elk in Poland, pointed out that Catholics in Russia “are the descendants of deported, proscripts or of people who at the times of the agrarian reforms of the Tsars had settled in the Eastern regions of the Empire. People of different nationalities: most of them Poles, but also Germans, Lithuanians, Belorussians, Ukrainians and Koreans”. Msgr. Mazur affirmed that “the Catholic Church today is duty-bound to ensure spiritual assistance”, he equally reiterated that “as they are the victims of persecutions, the Church should help them recover the faith of their forefathers”. According to Msgr. Mazur “this is precisely the role of the Church in Russia” and it is his belief that “we cannot speak of proselytism”. The prelate believes we should consider the problem of the canonical territory “not from the geographic standpoint but from the anthropological one”, since today “the borders of canonical territories don’t pass along a river or a mountain chain, but through the heart. We can only speak of the spiritual roots and of the religiousness of an individual. Considering the right to religious freedom, if a person wishes to know Christ, it cannot be denied to him. We therefore cannot speak of proselytism or of canonical territories”.
