Word: popes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...journalist Danil Granin, who was a guest at the plenum, expressed alarm that "here for the first time, not at a factory meeting but from the mouths of leaders of major party committees, I heard direct accusations against Gorbachev." Granin even heard complaints that "if the capitalists and the Pope are praising us, we are taking the wrong road...
...evidence that Gorbachev's drive for democracy and openness is serious seemed to grow even as the problems of the Communist world worsened. En route to Malta, Gorbachev stopped in Rome to visit John Paul II. His momentous meeting with the Pope marked the beginning of the end of more than 70 years of antagonism between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. The first Soviet Communist Party boss to set foot on Vatican soil, Gorbachev conferred with the Pope for an unexpectedly long 75 minutes in the library of the 16th century Apostolic Palace. Addressing John Paul...
Gorbachev also agreed to reopen diplomatic relations with the Vatican and discussed a possible papal visit to the Soviet Union sometime in the future. John Paul hedged on that, making his acceptance conditional upon some evidence of real improvement in the situation of Soviet Catholics. But the Pope did offer his endorsement of perestroika, all the while pressing home his "expectation" that Ukrainian Catholics would be allowed to exercise their faith fully and openly. The Ukrainian Church, which follows the Eastern liturgy but claims the Pope as its spiritual leader, was banned and driven underground by Stalin...
When the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV decided to seek the pardon of Pope Gregory VII in 1077, he stood barefoot for three days in the snow outside the papal quarters in Canossa, Italy. Gorbachev's concordat with the church was no less significant in its way. But there was a crucial difference: as is so often the case with Gorbachev, he achieved his reconciliation without humiliation. As he had done before, the Soviet leader let the ongoing crisis of the Communist system serve as an opportunity to push his nation toward a broader vision of the future. "We need...
...speeches in Rome, one of them with Pope John Paul II at his side, Mikhail Gorbachev spoke about the decline of Communism, the future of Europe and the role of religion in terms that few people would ever have expected from a Kremlin leader. Excerpts...