RELIGIOUS HEAD MAY MEET WITH POPE

July 27, 1997

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church said Sunday he still might meet sometime with Pope John Paul II - although he said it was too early to say when.

Alexy II displeased the Vatican earlier this summer when he called off what would have been the first-ever meeting between the heads of the two churches.

Alexy, speaking on the last day of his visit to Lithuania, said Sunday he was still willing to meet John Paul eventually. But he told Russia news agencies such a meeting would have to be ``well-prepared.''

The Russian patriarch has said he canceled the historic encounter because John Paul refused to commit to a joint statement on proselytism in Russia, or efforts by non-Russian Orthodox churches to convert Russians - an increasingly touchy issue in both faiths.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin recently rejected a Russian Orthodox-backed bill that would have restricted ``nontraditional'' churches in Russia, including Roman Catholicism. John Paul and the United States had opposed the bill.

On Saturday, Alexy made a conciliatory gesture toward the Roman Catholic Church, taking part in a joint Orthodox-Catholic blessing at a Lithuanian site.

Alexy and Roman Catholic Archbishop Audris Joseph Bachkis kissed each other to open the ceremony at the Gate of the Sunrise Chapel, each reading a short address and offering a benediction to more than 4,000 worshipers, including Lithuanian President Algirdas Brazauskas.

On Sunday, Alexy praised Lithuania's ethnic Russians for remaining ``faithful to their mother church despite the years of confusion, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the founding of new sovereign countries.''

``All of us must preserve peace and accord, the unity of the Orthodox Church, especially now when attempts are being made to split us,'' he said.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1091

28 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org