Flight to Canado

The scenario announced last week, the meeting of Patriarch Kirill with Pope Francis, scheduled for February 12, was vividly recalled the realities of the Cold War. The long-awaited but unexpected meeting of two large figures on the world religious and political scene takes place on the quasineral (cube of the Catholic country) of the airport on the distant exotic island. Subjects of the "states" are confronted with the fact of an event breaking all previous obstacles and attitudes. The theme of the meeting is purely political and again traditional for this kind of "breakthrough" events: the Middle East.

Yes, the script is familiar, but dad with the Patriarch is still not the head of the states involved in the conflict and not the leaders of the warring groups. The degree of their real influence on the Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis and Alavites, leading combat operations in Syria and Iraq, is small. And not one of the Western states, one way or another involved in the conflict, is so "Christian" to seriously take into account the wishes of religious authorities. For the sake of what then to violate the tradition of refusing to meet with the pope the tradition of refusing his predecessors, until Rome goes to serious concessions: it will not reduce its activity in the post-Soviet space and will provide the Russian Orthodox Church for temples returned to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church?

First of all, it must be said that there has been no conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church for ten years. After the death in 2005, Pope John Paul II, on whom the ROC leadership habitually wrote off all its failures, it became obvious that new problems with the Vatican were not added, and the old ones were overgrown with its past. It was possible to safely forget about the parishes in Western Ukraine - the main enemy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine had long been not Greek Catholics, but the Orthodox of the Kyiv Patriarchate. The Catholic dioceses in the post -Soviet space, established with the blessings of John Paul at the turn of the millennia, remained as stunted as other Catholic initiatives in the countries of the former USSR. But the need for good relations with the world's largest consolidated religious organization exacerbated. From the Catholics of the Russian Orthodox Church, not only unity in the struggle for "traditional values" in the European Union, but also more practical - for example, assistance in the opening of Orthodox parishes in Western Europe in the premises of Catholic churches, are also more practical.

Meanwhile, without waiting for gratitude from the Russian Orthodox Church for everything made for Russian Orthodoxy in the first half of the 1990s (and the dimensions of direct financial and humanitarian assistance were huge), the Catholics led by the new Pope Benedict XVI took a wait-and-see position. Small requests were fulfilled (in the order of mutual concessions), but there were no previous kisses.

When the Argentine Francis adhering to the Polosocialist views came to the place of the conservative Benedict, even the hints of the proximity between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican went into the past. It became too obvious that the head of the denomination, which has a billion of followers around the world, lives much more modestly than the head of the regional church. Although Francis seemed to declare his readiness to meet with Cyril at any time and anywhere, few thought that behind this was worth something other than politeness and interest in the possible exotic interlocutor.

So why was Patriarch Cyril needed to bow to Pope Francis? The first version is political. Kirill, at the request of Putin, is trying to influence the West to soften anti -Russian sentiments in the world. Recently, Francis successfully played the role of an intermediary in the withdrawal of Cuba from international isolation. Why not use it again in the same role, especially since there is still time before Obama from the presidential post for bright political steps? And you can start with a deal of Syria - after all, Russian representatives have recently been talking more than once about the possibility of resignation of Assad.

The second version is intra -confessional. In anticipation of the Long Orthodox Council planned in June, the meeting of the head of one of the Orthodox churches with the pope in order to protect Christians (and therefore, primarily the Orthodox) in the Middle East increases its social capital. And above all, in the eyes of representatives of the Middle Eastern churches, which not only traditionally “take money” from the Moscow Patriarchate, but would now be happy with some organizational assistance. It becomes hot under their feet, and for some reason, European Catholics, and not Russian Orthodox, help them when fleeing the borders of their own country.

The third version is associated with the personality of Cyril himself. He is a lover of large geopolitical schemes and a former TV star with an inevitable mania of greatness. But he has not been to the hero of world news for a long time. Meanwhile, the severity of internal problems in the church is growing, and this plunges the head of the Russian Orthodox Church into obvious depression. And a meeting with dad is an opportunity to feel like a "global leader" and get a charge of vigor. The Bishop Cathedral - the only place where the Patriarch could ask unpleasant questions - a week ago passed without big scandals, to a new one for another two or three years, so that any consequences of this meeting and possible objections of the church community will be forgotten by that time.

It is likely that the patriarch’s readiness for a date with the dad is explained not by any one of these reasons, but by their combination. However, the secret nature of the preparation for the meeting (which, by logic was supposed to be the main theme of the Bishop Cathedral) once again confirms one simple fact. The Russian Orthodox Church, which declares as a principle, is a collection, that is, the collectivity of the decisions made, is not in fact a conciliar. The most important issues of inter -church cooperation (as, indeed, many others) are in exceptional maintenance of the first person. It will be responsible for the consequences of this decision. And if someone in the church community recalls how Cyril and other "Nicodima" at one time accused that they were sold to Catholics, then a break between bishop's cathedrals may not be enough to extort passions. In the Russian Orthodox Church, such an accusation is traditionally more seriously than reproaches for the usurpation of power in the Church or in personal financial and moral unscrupulousness.