Pope and Patriarch
Pope John Paul II visited another post-Soviet republic, Azerbaijan, a couple of weeks ago. The Pontiff’s consistency is amazing; he surrounds Russia that rejects him with a solid circle of religious trips, as though asking, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Armenia have made me welcome; why can Russia not?
The Pope cannot visit Moscow because the Moscow Patriarchate does not want him there. To the Holy Synod, the Pontiff’s appearance would mean a most dangerous manifestation of “Catholic expansion.” Most likely, former Krakow Cardinal Karol Wojtyla wants to visit Moscow not to belittle Orthodoxy. It is just that the Pope positions himself as a politician and slayer of Communism, meaning that a visit to the capital of defeated Communism would be a good way to sum up his long and fruitful life.
His visit to Azerbaijan almost coincided with the Moscow Patriarch’s trip to Belarus (remarkably, when Pope John II was in Ukraine, Alexis II also visited Belarus and was welcomed by Aliaksandr Lukashenka). Unwelcome parallels come to mind: the Flying Pope’s constant trips and the Patriarch’s repeated pastoral visits to Belarus; the world’s most celebrated politicians and public figures hailing the Pontiff, and the Belarusian Daddy greeting the Patriarch.
Perhaps such parallels are irrelevant. Alexis II is no politician but primarily a religious figure. Then why pay such close attention to the Belarusian leader openly longing for the old Soviet days when crosses were torn off church domes, while parish priests who survived were forced to become NKVD informers and thereby serve a militantly atheistic state? What makes the Moscow Patriarchate so confident (a feeling often shared by the Moscow authorities) that the multiethnic Russian Federation, with so many different denominations, has one church that is more equal than the others, and that this church is in a position to decide which religious figures can be allowed to enter Russia and meet with its president, and which must wait for the privilege.
Is it because there is an Orthodox society? While the Russian Empire was an Orthodox state, all reservations notwithstanding, today’s Russia is a country of the Orthodox rite. Candles lit and the sign of the cross clumsily made in church by politicians with decades of party membership behind them do not constitute a society living by the Christian canons. It is just a veneer, behind which is that same unbelief currently made even more cynical.
Of course, Western society is by no means a model religious community. The Pontiff, aware of the increasingly secular nature of his flock, made a difficult choice. Remaining a conservative theologian and traditional shepherd, he turned into a modern politician held in respect by many Catholics and non-Catholics, not so much as the Pope but as one of the most influential leaders of the present day. The Moscow Patriarch could have made a similar choice. While staying true to the conservative religious tradition (after all, this is the prerogative of every believer), he could have presented himself in the public eye as a modern public figure, checking politics against morals, rather than a figure from the past, often supporting forces checking politics against obscurantism.
