You're reading: Estonian World Review: Moscow now must deal with ‘Ukrainian Pope’

Having watched as the Polish pope, John Paul II, helped end the communist empire in Europe, Moscow must now cope with a new reality, a Russian commentator says, it must recognize that in Pope Francis I, “we have a Ukrainian pope,” someone whose ideaas could threaten Russian interests in a new way.

According to a commentary on the Boardnews.ru portal, many Ukrainians hope and many Russian Orthodox hierarchs fear that the new pope, precisely because of his experiences with and sympathy for Ukrainian Christians, will give the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church – the Uniates — a patriarch (boardnews.ru/index.php/obshchestvo/2901-imeem-ykrainskogo-papy).

This unsigned commentary provides a wealth of evidence for both these hopes and fears. It begins by noting that Francis has shown himself committed to inter-religious dialogue, and it notes that “for the first time” since the 1054 split between Orthodoxy and Catholicis, Patriarch Bartholemew of Constantinople, the universal patriarch, attended a papal enthronement.

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