Russian church authorities' major concern is that the Vatican continues to send Roman Catholic missionaries into Russia and other countries of the Former Soviet Union in an effort to convert more people of Orthodox tradition into Catholicism.
The remaining divisions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy See prevented John Paul II from making a visit to Moscow, despite his long-standing desire to do so. In 1997, he was to meet with Russian Patriarch Alexis II in the Austrian city of Graz, but the meeting was eventually cancelled, Vyzhanov recalled. In a joint communique drafted in the course of preparatory negotiations in 1997, the Vatican repudiated Unia as a vehicle for the reunification with the Orthodox Church and committed itself to giving up Catholic proselytism in the Former Soviet Union. But a last-moment change of heart made the Vatican remove these clauses from the document, which made the prospective meeting pointless, Vyzhanov said.
On receiving from the Pope a much-revered copy of the icon of the Virgin of Kazan in 2004, Patriarch Alexis II said that a meeting with the Pope was possible some time in the future, but not as a protocol event. The leaders of the two Churches should meet after their major controversies have been resolved, as these cause much pain to the faithful, argued the Patriarch.
Vyzhanov is cautiously optimistic about the prospects of reconciliation.
