Analysis: Holy help from Putin?

GURAT, France, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Rome Wednesday and Thursday opened one of the most ironic prospects thus far in the past 1,000 years of church history.

Is it possible that this former KGB lieutenant colonel will help ease the tensions between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, as Putin indicated on his way to the ailing Polish pope?

"I shall take all the necessary steps to promote unity among different Christian confessions," he promised in an interview with Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper. More ironical still, Putin, son of a Communist father and a Christian mother who had him secretly baptized when he was a baby, seemingly sided with the proponents of a reference to Christianity in the new constitution for the European Union, of which Russia is not a member.

"Christianity is at the foundation of the European culture and identity," he said. At France's insistence, Christianity is not mentioned in the draft of the EU constitution, which is now being considered by all 25 present and future member states.

But his most amazing remark concerned the troubled relations between the Holy See and the Russian Orthodox Church, whose intransigence has so far stood in the way of the fulfillment of the pope's most fervent ecumenical wish -- that the ancient church will "breathe again with both lungs," as John Paul II likes to phrase it, meaning that after one millennium Rome and Orthodoxy be reconciled.

In his travels, the pontiff has made significant inroads with other Orthodox denominations -- the Greek, the Ukrainian and the Romanian, for example. But the Russians, doubtless reflecting the attitude of its historic church, remained hostile, revoking the visas of several Catholic priests and one bishop. Orthodox patriarch Alexei II has so far refused to meet with the pope.

In a further ironic twist, Putin's visit to the Vatican came at the heels of another important sign of thaw between the two branches of Christendom. In the United States, the 65th meeting of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Consultation concluded a four-year study that may lead to a breakthrough in the thorniest theological issue dividing East and West -- the "Filioque" question. "Filioque" is the Latin vocable for "and the Son."

The point of argument is this: Does the Holy Spirit proceed "from the Father and the Son" (fioloque), as Catholics and most Protestants say in the Nicene Creed, which is spoken in Communion services following the sermon? Or does the Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, proceed from the Father alone, as the Orthodox insist?

Of course there are other disagreements between the Western and the Eastern Church, but these are ecclesiological, such as the question of the primacy of the pope in Rome. However, where the "filioque" is concerned, the Orthodox appeal to a more ancient addition.

When in 381 A.D. the First Council of Constantinople finalized the Nicene Creed as a standard expression of the Christian faith, the relevant passage in its third article concerning the Holy Spirit read, "Who proceeds from the Father." In parts of Western Europe, the words, "and the Son" (filioque) were added in the 6th century. But it was not until the 11th century that Rome accepted this version officially.

In a stunning communiqué released in October in Washington, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Consultation recommended that the Catholic Church should not use the Filioque "in making translations of that text for catechetical and liturgical use." The Consultation argued that, after all, the Vatican had affirmed the "normative and irrevocable dogmatic value of the Creed of 381."

Furthermore, the Consultation urged Catholics and the Orthodox to refrain from labeling each other as heretics; theologians from both sides should forthwith distinguish more clearly between the theological problems concerning the origin of the Holy Spirit, and disagreements over church governance.

Enter ex-Communist Vladimir Putin into this apparent scenario of East-West ecclesial détente. When he paid his respects to John Paul II at the pontiff's apartments, there on a table between two chairs reserved for the two leaders sat an 800-year old painting depicting Our Lady of Kazan, perhaps Russia's most revered icon.

Its history added further spice to the encounter because at the time of the Russian Revolution, the icon hung in a church in St. Petersburg, later Leningrad, which the Communists transformed into a museum of atheism. They sold this work of art to an English nobleman; it was then passed on to assorted owners in Canada and the United States, until faithful Catholics acquired it and brought it to the Marian shrine of Fatima in Portugal.

From there, John Paul II took it to the Vatican, intent on restoring it to the Russian Church, more specifically, to Kazan. In fact, he wanted to drop it off at this capital of Tartarstan, where children had found it in the 16th century. But his declining health -- and Alexei's stubborn refusal to reconcile with the pope -- stood in the way of this journey.

But now here was the Lady of Kazan framed by the head of the Catholic Church and Putin, the Orthodox Christian, once a godless intelligence officer of the Soviet Union. John Paul embraced the icon, saying in perfect Russian, "I pray for Russia every day." Putin followed his example and kissed the image, too. Then he said should Russian Church's patriarch approve of an invitation to the pope, he, Putin, would be delighted to confirm it.

Meanwhile doubts about Putin's sincerity were muttered in the corridors of the German Protestant Church's synod (parliament) meeting at Trier, the nation's oldest city -- and at one time capital of the Roman Empire. While Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who wasn't present, keeps calling Putin one of his best friends, delegates from Dresden in the former East Germany labeled him a fishy fellow.

"I knew him well," one of them told journalists, "he is a dangerous opportunist. When he talks to Christians he professes his faith in God, then he turns around telling others how devout an atheist he is." Church people from Dresden should know -- in Communist days, Lt. Col. Vladimir Putin ran the KGB's station in their town.