Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Negotiations with the Kremlin are part of a larger Vatican strategy aimed at closing the 900-year-old schism between Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox, the bulk of whom live in Communist countries. For years the Vatican has been quietly working with world Orthodoxy, including the Russians, to settle various long-standing obstacles to reconciliation. One of the nastiest is the existence of pockets of Catholics loyal to Rome within countries in which the Orthodox predominate. The newest round of discussions on these Eastern Rite Catholics will be held next week at the New Valamo monastery in Finland...
...biggest of these disputed churches, made up of millions of Catholic believers, mostly in the western Ukraine, who were forced into the Russian Orthodox Church under Stalin in 1946. Since then, many of these Ukrainians, who still consider the Pope their leader, have led an illegal underground existence. Despite Vatican overtures on their behalf, the Russian Orthodox Church resists having the Kremlin give legal recognition to the Catholics, arguing that they belong within Orthodoxy...
...long-promised revision of Stalin's laws. Cautions Alexander Ogorodnikov, an ex-prisoner and lay activist who ran a seminar on past persecution last week: "A positive tone can easily become negative again after the celebrations. What counts is what is written in law." A member of the Vatican retinue also warned, "There is no evidence that this process in the Soviet Union is irreversible. Everyone knows there is a struggle in the Kremlin, and no one is sure who will...
...disintegration. They have a youth that is disaffected, an intolerable abortion rate and a serious alcohol and drug problem." Religious believers, points out this observer, "tend to be constructive members of society. I don't think any Soviet leader now can pit himself against the church." One of the Vatican delegates described Gorbachev's situation a bit more bluntly: "He realizes he needs more than the party. He needs the people...
...bold display of glasnost, the Soviets honor 1,000 years of Christianity and are host to a high- powered Vatican delegation...