The Russian Orthodox Church has criticized the Vatican’s attitude toward the Greek Catholic Church, which is linked to Rome. The "Uniates" are an "obstacle to the dialogue between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches".
The head of the foreign office of the Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion, said this, according to the Interfax news agency. The Catholic Church shows a "certain reluctance and even reluctance to discuss this ie". However, it is impossible to leave out this ie "because the Uniates loudly and fiercely remind us of its existence almost every day," Hilarion said at a press briefing in Moscow.
The remarks were prompted by the plenary session of the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which ended Thursday in Chieti, central Italy, and Hilarion’s previous meeting with Pope Francis. Hilarion nevertheless assessed the meeting with the Pope positively. As a gift from Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril I. he presented the pope with a relic of St. Seraphim of Sarov.
Meeting in Cuba with positive reverberations
The first meeting of the two church leaders in Cuba in February opened "new perspectives" in relations with the Roman Catholic Church, he said.
The International Commission for Theological Dialogue of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches adopted in Chieti a document that had been under discussion for several years. This is about the primacy of the pope in the first millennium. Between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, the primacy of the pope is one of the main obstacles to understanding.