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Roman Catholicism in Russia
Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Roman Catholic Church in Russia is part of
the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under
the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
Origins
Since Rus' (the Eastern Slavic polity that later came
to be Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) was converted in 988,
before the Great Schism (1054), it is somewhat
anachronistic to talk of the Roman Catholic versus the
Eastern Orthodox Church in the origins
of Russian Christianity.
However, the Great Schism of 1054 was actually the
culmination of a long process and the churches had
been in schism before that (e.g., the Photian schism
of the ninth century) and had been growing
apart for centuries before that.
Several nineteenth century Catholic historians argued
that Russia became Catholic at the time of the Baptism,
however this thesis has been rejected
by most serious historians.
Western sources indicate that Princess Olga (d. 954)
sent an embassy to the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I.
Otto charged Bishop Adaldag of Bremen with missionary
work to the Rus'; Adaldag consecrated the monk Libutius
of the Convent of St. Albano as bishop of Rus', but Libutius
died before he ever set foot in Russia.
He was succeeded by Adalbertus, a monk of the convent of
St. Maximinus at Trier, but Adalbertus returned to Germany
after several of his companions were killed in Russia.
Western sources also indicate that Olga's grandson,
Prince Vladimir (d. 1016) sent emissaries to Rome in 991
and that Popes John XV (985-96), and Sylvester II (999-1003)
sent three embassies to Kiev.
A German chronicler, Dithmar, relates that the Archbishop of
Magdeburg consecrated a Saxon as archbishop of Russia and
that the latter arrived in Russia, where he preached the
Gospel and was Bishop Reinbert of Kolberg accompanied the
daughter of Boleslaus the Intrepid to her wedding when she
married Vladimir's son Sviatopolk, (known to history as
"the Damned" for his later murder of
his half-brothers Boris and Gleb).
Reinbert was arrested for his efforts to
proselytise and died in prison.
These embassies to and from Rus' may be the basis for the
somewhat fanciful account in the Russian Primary Chronicle
of Prince Vladimir sending out emissaries to the various
religions around Rus' (Islam, Judaism, Western and Eastern
Christianity), including to the Catholic Church in Germany,
although the emissaries returned unimpressed by Western
Christianity, explaining in part the eventual
adoption of Orthodox Christianity.
Roman Catholicism in Rus' From the Eleventh
Century to the Council of Florence
The Russian Orthodox Church has, in fact, had a long
aversion to Roman Catholicism.
Metropolitan Ivan II (d. 1089) responded to a proposal
of Antipope Clement III for a union of the churches with
a letter enumerating the heresies of the Latins (Markovich
attributes this letter to Metropolitan
Ivan IV who died in 1166.)
Metropolitan Nicepherus I (1103-1121) also considered
Catholicism a heresy; this, in fact, has been the standard
view of Catholicism in the Russian church up to the present
day and not just among the heads of the church who were
often Greeks sent from Constantinople: Archbishop Nifont
of Novgorod (1135-1156), for example, in the instructional
"Questions of Kirik", responded that a woman who took her
children to be baptised by a Catholic (the term "Varangian",
that is, Viking, is used) priest was to incur the same
penance as one who took them to be blessed by a pagan sorcerer.
Other sources, including the Kormchaia Kniga (the code of canon
law of the medieval Russian Church) attacked
Catholicism as a heresy to be shunned.
Up until the time of Metropolitan Isidor (1431-1437),
the Russian metropolitans had almost no contact with Rome.
This, however, did not mean that there was
no Catholic presence in Rus'.
The Teutonic Knights and the Brothers of the Sword (subsummed
into the Teutonic Order in 1227), Swedes, Danes, and other
Catholic powers launched a series of crusades against Pskov,
Novgorod, and other towns in northwestern Russia and the
Novgorodians fought hard to keep Catholicism out of the
Novgorodian Land, not merely due to religious differences,
but also because Catholic converts among the Finnic tribesmen
and/or the Slavic populace would pay taxes to and be part of
the Catholic Churches and Catholic monarchies'
administrative structures.
Taxes, tribute, or military levies would then go to the
Scandinavian kingdoms or the Germanic city-states of Livonia,
or to the Lithuanians, and thus reduce Novgorod's
wealth and overall security.
In the 1330s, Poland took over Volynia in present-day Ukraine
and, the Novgorodian Chronicles tell us, converted the
Orthodox churches there into Catholic ones.
In 1387, the Lithuanians, who had long threatened the
western frontier, converted to Catholicism and united
dynastically with the Poles.
The Catholic Grand Princes, such as Vytautas the Great,
attempted to establish separate metropolitanates
in the Russian lands they controlled.
The Russian church always fought against this, in
large part out of fear that the new metropolitanates
would be converted to Catholic provinces.
Prince Yarslav Vladimirovich and other princes married
their daughters to Western princes; one of these dynastic
marriages was, in fact, to a Holy Roman Emperor
(although the marriage was an unhappy
and ultimately failed one).
Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavich (1054-68; 1069-73; 1076-78)
sent his son to Pope Gregory VII, asking for papal assistance
and promising to make Russia a vassal of the Holy See.
Gregory's reply letter is dated April 17, 1075.
Grand Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich (1078-93) established the
feast of the translation of the relics of St. Nicholas to
Bari in Southern Italy, a feast approved by Pope Urban II
(1088-99), who in 1091 sent Bishop
Teodoro to Vsevolod with relics.
20th century
Before 1917 there were two dioceses in Russia: in Mogilev
with its episcopal see in St. Petersburg and Tiraspol
with its episcopal see in Saratov.
150 Catholic parishes were present with more than 250
priests to serve around half a million
Catholic believers in Russia.
During the 70 years of the Soviet time (1917 - 1987) many
Roman Catholic faithful lost their life, were persecuted
or sent to imprisonment for their faith.
By the end of 1930-s, there were only two functioning Roman
Catholic churches in the USSR: Church of St. Louis in
Moscow and the Church of Our Lady
of Lourdes in St. Petersburg.
21st century
There are approximately 750,000 Catholics in Russia -
about 0.5% of the total population.
For those of the Latin Rite there are four dioceses,
including 1 archdiocese, plus an Apostolic Prefecture.
There is a separate jurisdiction
for those of the Byzantine Rite.
Apostolic Exarchate of Moscow
In February 2002, the Catholic Apostolic Administrations
were formed into one archdiocese in Moscow, and three
diocese in Novosibirsk, Saratov, and Irkutsk.
The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow has voiced his support
for religious education in state sponsored schools,
citing the examples of other countries.
Relations with the Russian Orthodox church have been
rocky for nearly a millennium, and attempts at
re-establishing Catholicism have met with opposition.
Pope John Paul II for years expressed a desire to visit
Russia, but the Russian Orthodox Church
has for years resisted.
In April 2002, Bishop Jerry Mazur of Eastern Siberia
was striped of his visa, forcing the appointment
of a new bishop for that diocese.
In 2002, five foreign Catholic priests were denied
visas to return to Russia, construction of a new
cathedral was blocked in Pskov, and a church in
southern Russia was shot at.
On Christmas Day 2005, Russian Orthodox activists
planned to picket outside of Moscow's Catholic
Cathedral, but the picket was cancelled.
Despite the recent thawing of relations with the
election of Pope Benedict XVI, there are still
issues such as the readiness of the police to
protect Catholics and other
minorities from persecution.
One thousand Russian Catholics gathered in the
Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception Cathedral
in Moscow to watch the Pope's funeral.
A 2004 Ecumenical conference was organized for
Russia's "traditional religions" Orthodox
Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism,
and therefore excluded Catholicism.
For a more information about
Roman Catholicism in Russia see Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This page was retrieved and condensed from
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_Russia)
see Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, January 2008.
All text is available under the terms of the
GNU Free Documentation License
(see
Copyrights for details).
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
This information was correct in January 2008. E. & O.E.
2007
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