Posted on 11/08/2013 6:01:49 AM PST by marshmallow
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis will receive Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 25, an encounter that could help mend strained relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russian-Vatican relations have been fraught since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, with Moscow accusing the Roman Catholic Church of trying to poach believers from the Russian Orthodox Church, a charge the Vatican denies.
But Putin is the first Kremlin leader since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to publicly profess religious faith - to the Orthodox church - and has several times advocated ending the long feud between the two major Christian churches.
Putin and the pope will hold their first meeting on November 25, a Vatican spokesman said on Thursday.
Putin, who also met his two immediate predecessors, could invite the pope to visit Russia, diplomats said.
Popes Benedict and John Paul had standing invitations from the Russian government but could not go because they received no matching invitation from the Orthodox Church. Francis would need the same to go to Russia.
Another dispute between the churches concerns the fate of many church properties that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics, who worship in an Orthodox liturgy but owe their allegiance to Rome.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Unfortunately, Putin may be more Christian than the current occupier of the Vatican.
Here is a pope that is rapidly de-Christianizing the Catholic Church. He has stated, in words to the effect, that Christ is not the head of the Catholic Church.
Putin, as totalitarian as possible, has stated that the Russian Church and belief in God is necessary to his nation and, further, that homosexual propagandizing is now against the laws of state and Christianity.
Putin is an adulterer, journalist killing torturer and spy who has an iron grip on power and sends girl dissenters to Siberia.
He is evil and wanton.
Jury still out on Francis, but I wouldn’t hold out any big hopes for this weird meeting between the two of them
You’re correct but I’m still writing him in for POTUS if its Hillary vs NJFatboy in Nov 16.
No, the Orthodox bishops haven’t invited the Pope so he doesn’t go, even if Putin invited Popes before, at least to my understanding.
Freegards
He is, if you can believe Pravda:
"In the East there is someone that causes the western liberal's maniacal laughter to stop. Vladimir Putin. He has real world power, which causes the liberal media to fearfully ignore or warp his image. Like a good Christian King he leads a nation to Christ. Deep down in their evil souls they shriek like devils because they know Christ is true God and true power that they cannot defeat. They thought the Bolshevik revolution destroyed Holy Mother Russia. Christ cannot be defeated and his servant Putin has welcomed Christ and His church."
-- from the thread US threatened by Russia's Christianity
From the Internet: For sixteen years Putin served as an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election and was re-elected in 2004. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election and appointed Putin as Prime Minister, beginning a period of so-called "tandemocracy".
In September 2011, following a change in the law extending the presidential term from four years to six, Putin announced that he would seek a third, non-consecutive term as President in the 2012 presidential election, an announcement which led to large-scale protests in many Russian cities. He won the election in March 2012 and is serving a six-year term.
He wants to be king emporer czar ruler again.
Maybe I’m dense, but I’m not following how this helps to mend Catholic-Orthodox relations.
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