“For the first time John Paul II is visiting an Orthodox country without the agreement of the political authorities”. That’s how Le Monde (24-25/6) hails the Pope’s journey to the Ukraine, calling the destination of the Pope’s last apostolic “mission” a “religious powderkeg”. “This visit – comments Henri Tincq – is taking place at a bad time for the ‘autonomous’ Church of Ukraine, dependent on the patriarchate of Moscow, now in steep decline. If the Orthodox population remains attached to it by tradition, that Church has always been identified with the Soviet rule of the past and is seeing the defection of its faithful to the two dissident Churches, not recognized by world Orthodoxy: the ‘national Ukrainian Church of the self-proclaimed ‘patriarch’ Philaret of Kiev; and the ‘autocephalous’ Church born from ultranationalist emigration. For the sole reason of throwing discredit on the patriarchate of Moscow, these two rebel Churches gave their assent to John Paul II’s visit and are trying to exploit it to their own advantage. So this apostolic journey complicated both intra-Orthodox relations and the relations between Rome and Moscow”. The French Vatican correspondent then gives, so to say, a sociological interpretation of the Pope’s visit: “A gulf is opening between the clergy and society in which the Churches are more concerned with the liturgy than with social action and only have a marginal influence (…). To the criticisms raised by this visit, the Vatican continues to reply that John Paul II is not coming to the Ukraine to sow dissension, still less to proselytise in a country of Orthodox tradition”. A “tenacious pilgrim of ecumenism”: that’s how La Croix (25/6) calls John Paul II, and adds: “The Pope is trying to convince the various Orthodox and Catholic Churches to advance on the road of unity”. The first two days of the Pope’s journey to the Ukraine, says the French daily, “were marked by the wish not to alienate the Orthodox communities and, more precisely, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Moscow, which is hostile to this visit”. In the Pope’s view, moreover, “the two Churches united in Rome must overcome their divisions”, especially by taking steps to ensure that their relations become “an ecclesial testbed for achieving unity in diversity”. With regard to the way in which John Paul II “interpreted” the history of the Ukraine, La Croix emphasises that “at no time” did the Pope evoke the sorrowful past “in terms of reproach for the Orthodox communities (…). The Pope courteously declared, without dwelling on the wounds of the past: if there are wrongs, they are on both sides; let us forgive each other”. “The Pope appeals to peace to challenge the Ukraine”: is the headline of the “ Catholic Herald (29/6), according to which “the Pope undoubtedly believes that the prayer of Jesus is an ‘order’, not an option, and this leads him to bring to completion one of the dreams of this papacy – the reunification of East and West (…). The Pope knows that if the problems of this historical shortcoming in Christianity are solved, the witness of Christ both in the East and in the West will be more powerful and the other problems of ecumenism could then begin to be tackled. Episcopate and Eucharist mean that we have a great deal to share and that ‘the ecumenism of holiness’ of the blood of the martyrs bears witness to Christ”. Summing up the Pope’s journey to the Ukraine, Henri Tincq (Le Monde , 29/6) points out that the Holy Father’s visit “confirmed the rebirth of the Greek-Catholic Uniate Church, persecuted in the past, in the former Soviet republic. But it seems also to have definitively endorsed the disagreement between it and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow, Alexis II”. The mere fact, for example, that some Orthodox faithful participated in the celebrations in Kiev and Lvov was enough for the Pope “to be accused of being allied with the Ukraine in dividing Orthodoxy. The dissident Churches – comments Tincq – have profited from the vacuum left by the official Church to obtain public recognition. The risk is that Moscow will long reprove the Pope’s embrace of Philaret, the self-proclaimed patriarch of Kiev, already known for his criticisms of Russia”. John Paul II’s “gamble”, concludes Henri Tincq, “was to test the vitality of the Greek-Catholic Church of the Ukraine, without compromising the possibility of renewing dialogue with the great Slav Orthodox tradition. It isn’t certain that this gamble has paid off, but that will certainly not stop him. As if under the pressure of time, he seems determined to press forward and to break this rule of the ecumenical game imposed by Moscow, which consists in deferring the resumption of the dialogue to the day when the historical, theological and political divisions will all be overcome. I.e. never”. The Pope’s visit to the Ukraine was an undoubted success, according to the German-language press. In an unsigned editorial, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 28/6 examines all the aspects of the trip and drawn from them a very positive conclusion. The pope’s words, in fact, according to the German daily, restored centrality to “religious problems and the significance of Christianity for the social and political development of the country”. Topics “on which for decades there was no longer any form of debate”. The Pope’s journey was also positive in its ecumenical aspect. First of all because the Pope clearly presented himself as “brother of the Orthodox faithful and not as a proselytiser keen to make converts among the Ukrainians as the religious authorities of Moscow and some Ukrainian exponents alleged”. Now the ball is in the court of the Orthodox Church “which continues to give the impression of remaining attached to the Soviet style by denying religious independence to the Ukrainian territory”. A “suspicion reinforced” by its identity of views “with the controversial Byelorussian leader Lukatschenko, whose criticisms of the Pope’s journey are shared by Alessis II and whose appeal to the Ukrainians to enter a kind of Russo-Byelorusse federation has also been endorsed by the Moscow patriarch”. According to the German daily, the Pope thwarted these attempts “by addressing himself to Ukrainian Orthodoxy as if to a single interlocutor, and by declaring that its internal division into three churches is an anachronism”. Someone else who gained in “credibility” from this visit was the Ukrainian President Kutschma, who “rejected the politico-religious attempts of Russia to ensure that the visit proved a failure”. This attitude is also explained in the light “of a political change of the international community that after years of harsh criticisms directed at Ukrainian democracy seems now to have aimed its conduct at a new realpolitik”. Decisive, in the view of the FAZ, was also the Pope’s appeal for reconciliation: “What unites is more important than what divides is the central crux of the papal message”. The only unclear aspect is, in the view of the Frankfurt daily, the development of dialogue with the Orthodox Church. “Alexis II remains firmly entrenched inside his church together with his circle attached to the past” and the Pope seems “slowly to be winning the argument against him for continuing to reject dialogue with Rome”. Of course, it’s not known whether after John Paul II’s visit, the Ukrainian Catholics “will be able to pursue his ecumenical aims with the same determination”. Positive is also the comment of the Austrian Catholic press agency Kathpress in a report signed by Ludwig Ring-Eifel (28/6), hailing a journey that “achieved greater support than observers had predicted”. Even “despite the lack of any meeting with the Orthodox metropolitan Wolodymyr” the Pope did not fail “to address amicable words to Orthodoxy and to repeat his invitation to dialogue”. From a popular point of view, besides, the journey was a “complete triumph” positively emphasized also by the “ever growing attention of the Ukrainian media”. What still remains in doubt is, also in Kathpress’s view, “the relation with Moscow”. “Ukraine and Byelorusse – ends the report – belonged to the central core of the Soviet Union and still to this day from the Russian viewpoint fall into the area of Moscow’s religious political power”. Yet after the Pope’s visit to the Ukraine “this no longer represents an obstacle for the Polish Pope, who once again reaffirmed his vision of a Europe anchored to Christian values and stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals.” a cura di Maria Michela Nicolais e Patrizia Ciolessi
