Sibling rivalry

Valtina Niktimina, 68, often comes to pray at the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception even though she is Russian Orthodox. PHOTO: Daniel Evans

The stained-glass window in the Catholic Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in central Moscow reflects a contradiction - standing side by side are two brothers, Peter and Andrew, who signed up on the same day to join Christ's band of Apostles in Galilee.

But 2,000 years later, the reality in Russia is far less rosy. Successors of Andrew, believed to have taken the gospel to the East, quarrel constantly with the successors of Peter, who established the gospel in the West.

Eight centuries since the Great Schism, Russia, the world's largest Orthodox country, is still deeply suspicious and fearful of the Roman Catholic Church, accusing it of poaching Orthodox believers.

"If you are preaching the truth you do not have to buy people to hear it," said the Rev. Mikhail Kapchits, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church at New York's St. Nicholas Cathedral. "That is what the Catholic Church is doing in Russia."

But the quarrel between the Churches is more about power than proselytizing. The Vatican's decision last year to upgrade their administrative structures in Russia into four dioceses sparked fireworks. The Moscow patriarchate called the move a "spiritual aggression" in a country that has been nominally Orthodox for over 1,000 years. The Russian government revoked the visa of Catholic Bishop Jerzy Mazur, bishop of Irkutsk in Siberia. In the next nine months, at least four other foreign-born Catholic clergy were expelled. And in May 2002, the Russian Duma unsuccessfully attempted to pass a law prohibiting the Catholic Church's presence in the country.

Having found their freedom only a decade ago after 70 years of communism, the Orthodox Church is not eager to have its place at the top challenged.

"The Catholic Church is a threat," said Andrei Zolotov, a religion reporter for The Moscow Times. "The other churches, like the Adventists, are nothing. They are mere gatherings in some of the city's halls; they can do whatever they want; they are not Church. But the Catholic Church has the same ecclesiological character that we have. That is why they are a threat."

That threat is compounded by the Catholic quest to promote humanitarian activities in a country that is financially, if not spiritually, starving.

At the Catholic Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, one of the only two functioning parishes in sprawling Moscow, even serving soup to the homeless is seen as proselytizing.

Out of a dozen Orthodox believers interviewed in three different parts of the country, however, only one said he had personally witnessed Catholic proselytizing.

Sergei Astaficus, a priest-candidate in Sergiev-Posad, some 50 miles northeast of Moscow, said many Russians flock to Catholic churches that give humanitarian aid in Astrakhan, Southern Russia. And in Lvov, western Ukraine, a small number of Catholics took over an Orthodox church in the early 1990s, according to the theology student. "Now there is virtually no Orthodox cathedral in the city controlled by pro-Catholic authorities," he said.

But an encounter with an old Orthodox at Moscow's Catholic cathedral revealed different happenings.

On a recent winter morning, Valtina Niktimina, 68, was a lone figure sitting at the back of the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception. A pair of small, weary-looking eyes peeped from behind her eyelids, heavy with age. The small eyes shifted between the statue of Our Lady of Fatima on a pedestal to the left of the altar and a bronze sculpture of Pope John Paul II at its base.

"I come here because they know me here," said Niktimina, who is ailing with breast cancer. "They give me help, food and clothes."

Niktimina said authorities at her Orthodox parish also know her, but she struggled to recall the name or location of that parish.

The Catholics have not asked her to join the church, she said, but even on days they don't give her handouts, Niktimina still drags her aging frame to her favorite seat at the back.

"Their faith is so close to ours," she said. "Also, I come here because I can sit down. For us [Russian Orthodox], in front of God you must stand, even those with sick legs like me."

Olga Karpov, 24, who frequently helps out with the church's social services, said, "When they come for assistance, we take care of them here in the basement. But we cannot stop them from going upstairs into the church; neither can we stop them from whatever religious experience they encounter up there."

Such encounters are a reminder of the reason the two Churches split in 1054. At a recent liturgy conducted by Patriarch Alezy II at Moscow's Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the conspicuous omission of a clause in the creed hung in the air.

"We believe in the Holy Sprit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father," the choir sung in Old Slavonic, as Patriarch Alexy, dressed in royal gold from head to toe, bowed deep before the great altar in a chapel the height of a nine-story building within the cathedral.

A few miles away at St. Louis Catholic parish, the choir there added "and the Son," after the same phrase.

The so-called "filioque" clause, together with differences over papal authority over the universal Church, caused the Great Schism. The East accused the West of unilaterally adding a theologically unfounded clause to the sacred creed. And the former decried the West's attempt to impose the bishop of Rome as the supreme authority on the universal Church.

Since the Second Vatican Council in 1965, when the Catholic Church recognized the Orthodox as "Sister Churches," most Orthodox countries have softened their stand against Rome. But not Russia. Moscow will not talk of a return to the original unity.

"If the Church of Rome would compromise on some of the dogmas that separate the East and West, there would be no reason to remain a part," said Dmitry Ermokov, a graduate of the theological seminary at Sergiev-Posad, the seat of Russian Orthodoxy. "But there are lots of strict people in the Orthodox who are quite anti-Catholic, and the [administration] doesn't want to have a split."

This reluctance to acknowledge the Catholic Church continues to frustrate Pope John Paul's 23-year old obsession to visit Russia. But Patriarch Alexy won't let him.

"The patriarch doesn't want to meet him," said Zolotov.

One may wonder why the Orthodox radar is on overdrive at picking anything Catholic. The over 80 million Russians who describe themselves as Orthodox clearly dwarf an estimated 600,000 people of Catholic descent living in Russia. The Church of Our Lady of Hope, which is actually a residence within the American Embassy, can take only 120 people every Sunday.

The Orthodox, on the other hand, have some 400 churches scattered around the city, and the greater Moscow Patriarchate has some 22,000 churches. Yet only 1 to 4 percent of Russians regularly attend services, according to Zolotov.

Nonetheless, conversions are a rarity. Out of Moscow's 12 million inhabitants, only 600 Russians have since 1990 asked to cross over to the Catholic faith, according to the Rev. Michael Ryan, a missionary of Our Lady of Hope who has been in Moscow for ten years. "If they request, I cannot turn them down," he said, "but first I'd ask them, 'Why don't you stay with the Orthodox Church? Yes, you're old enough to decide, but let's wait for a year.' That's the official policy."

Karpov is one such convert.

Eight years ago, the former Orthodox who is now an executive editor of the Russian National Catholic Weekly, Svet Evangelia, attended her first Catholic service at St. Louis. "Something definitely struck me there," she said. "Maybe it was the singing, the more active participation of the faithful; I don't know, but it took me several years to completely cross over."

Despite the allegedly all-inclusive charitable activities run by the Catholics, no one is as easily admitted to the faith as the Orthodox allege, Karpov said.

But Zolotov said the poaching happens in more subtle ways; like what he said he encountered in 1998.

According to the Orthodox reporter, a young lady invited him to a Catholic youth hangout on Orthodox Easter night. Easter, the utmost solemnity in the Christian calendar, but which the two Churches celebrate according to different calendars, is the night the Catholics had chosen to have a hangout for the youth, he said. "Naturally, the youth in the neighborhood would choose a hangout to a long liturgy. I'll never believe that was a coincidence."

Ryan, on the other hand, said he saw no problem in the event; in as far as it was done quietly. "But if the youth invited an Orthodox, that would be their own stupidity. I can't defend stupidity and I can't explain it," he said.

There is no end in sight to this near-millennium feud.

"It's easier to sort out two friends in disagreement," Zolotov said. "But when the fight is between two brothers, it takes a while longer."

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