MOSCOW - Patriarch Alexy II, the leader of Russia's majority Orthodox Church, said in an interview published Wednesday that he would be willing to meet with the pope if problems between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic Churches could be solved during such an encounter.
"I have said more than once that I am prepared to meet with the pope, but it would have to be a meeting that really allows us to solve the problems" of alleged Catholic proselytizing in Russia and disputes over church property in western Ukraine, Alexy was quoted as saying in the Gazeta daily.
Alexy has repeatedly identified those two issues as the main obstacles to improving relations with the Vatican, and rejected Pope John Paul II's desire to visit Russia.
Earlier this month, the patriarch said the Vatican's recent creation of four formal dioceses in Russia — which the Orthodox hierarchy viewed as an attempt to make further inroads among Orthodox believers — had put any reconciliation talks between the two churches on indefinite hold.
About two-thirds of Russia's 144 million inhabitants are loyal to the Orthodox Church. The approximately 600,000-member Catholic flock comprises a tiny minority.
President Vladimir Putin has sought to keep his distance from the Orthodox-Vatican dispute, which picked up momentum last year when John Paul visited neighboring Ukraine, another predominantly Orthodox country. Earlier this year, Putin told Polish journalists that that he was eager to invite John Paul to Moscow. However, he added that the visit would hinge on a Vatican-Orthodox settlement.
Alexy's interview appeared on the day when the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, had been scheduled to debate an appeal to Putin to prohibit the Catholic dioceses from operating. But lawmakers put off the debate, saying they could consider it Friday.
"The actions of the Roman Catholic Church testify to its continued belief that in spite of its millennium-old Christian tradition, Russia is a 'spiritual wilderness,'" said the appeal drafted by Viktor Alksnis, a member of the centrist Russian Regions faction.
The appeal also accused the Vatican of "consciously provoking" Japanese claims to islands off Russia's Far East coast, by using the Japanese name of Karafuto Prefecture to identify the region encompassing the southern part of Sakhalin Island and the disputed Southern Kuril Islands.
"Insofar as these actions by the Roman Catholic Church present a threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, the activities of the Catholic Church dioceses should be prohibited," the draft appeal said.