Our Ecclesiology

Early ecumenist thinking

In the nineteenth century, when Vladimir Solovyov first brought the Russian Catholic Church out of the shadows one of the things that he emphasised was his great love for the Orthodox church. There was never any intent to become a subversive fifth column. Solovyov, who is regarded as one of the most stimulating influences to the
religious-philosophic thought of Russia, believed that the fullness of Catholic communion required that communities be in union with the chair of St Peter in Rome. So he attempted to chart a course of progress toward an East-West Christian ecumenicism. It was the inception of the Russian Catholic Church.

Russian Catholics long for a reunion with the mother church, which is Moscow, and aspire to be part of the reconciliation of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. The aim should be for all parts of the Church to be in communion with Peter, not under Peter. In that sense we are the disciples of Solovyov.

Rome at the time of Solovyov’s initiative was at one of its heights of imperialist sentiment, however. Vatican 1 had just passed and Pope Pius IX had himself declared infallible. This created significant obstacles to union. From the Orthodox view papal infallibility is a mistaken idea – indeed it can be revised, in part because the Orthodox patriarchates were not involved.

Missteps

There have many false steps since Solyvov first laid out his ideas. In 1921 the new structure in Russia was recognized by the Congregation for the Oriental Church in Rome as the Apostolic Exarchate of the Byzantine rite, with its seat in Moscow. Leonid Feodorov, who had converted to Catholicism, had the dignity of Apostolic Protonotary. Feodorov, however, held romantic views about the future Catholic mission in Russia that went awry. He believed the most important task of the small exarchate was to give witness to the possibility of renewing the communion with Rome and to save the Orthodox tradition. The Russian Orthodox, unsurprisingly, did not trust Feodorov, viewing him as an agent of Latin religious aggressors. It is a view is still held by many in Russia.

It was to get worse. In 1925, Pope Pius XI founded a special Russian commission. Luigi Cardinal Sincero was its head, but it was controlled by the relater of the commission, Fr. Michel d’Herbigny SJ. None of the native Russian clergy
participated in the commission from it’s beginning. The mistaken efforts of d’Herbigny to proselytize also went grimly wrong.

The Russicum

In 1939, the Collegium Russicum was established in Rome, becoming the central point of the Russian Catholics. But it was largely controlled by the Jesuits and tended to ignore well-established liturgical forms. There was an inclination to modernize and to transform the Byzantine liturgy, breaking up the Byzantine tradition into doctrine,
on the one hand, and ritual, on the other. By the 1950s, the percentage of Russians in the Russicum had been reduced to zero.

After the Second Vatican Council, the Russian Apostolate was reactivated in co-operation with the Orthodox Church. The Council decree: Unitatis redintegratio (restoration of unity) reaffirmed the honor of the Orthodox Churches, which were not in communion with the See of Rome. A delegation of the Moscow patriarchate visited the Russicum for the first time in 1963.

The situation subsequently improved in small increments, but after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church deteriorated. Past errors by the Catholic Church within Russia led to residual suspicion – a situation not helped by the lack of focus in Rome on what will truly lead to unity with the East.

Diaspora

Russian Catholic Churches have been established around the world: North and South America, Asia, Europe, South East Asia and Australasia. They have kept alive the love of the Russian liturgy, Eastern Orthodox church traditions, religious thinking and mysticism. There are some small signs of moves towards unity. The modern ecumenical movement and the Orthodox Churches have started to participate. But there is a long road ahead.

In its deepest foundations the Church cannot be split. The unity the Russian Catholics are trying to find is not novel, it is something that emerges from Christ himself. It does not need to be created; it only needs to be brought back to the surface, made incarnate. That is why both churches recognise each other’s sacraments, holy orders and apostolic succession. They know that there can be only one Church and one Christ.