MOSCOW - Legislators from a pro-Kremlin political party yesterday called on Russians to unite behind the Orthodox Church to protest what they say is the expansion of the Vatican's influence here, adding fuel to an outburst of anti-Catholic sentiment that has swept across Russia.
Tensions have been rising between Russia's 600,000 Catholics and the Russian Orthodox majority since February, when the Vatican upgraded its structures in Russia by creating four fully-fledged dioceses. That move angered the Russian Orthodox Church, which accused the Vatican of infringing on its traditional territory to lure away its faithful.
The centrist People's Party and a nationalist group called the Union of Orthodox Citizens have announced nationwide rallies for Sunday. A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, the Rev. Antony Ilyin, said the church supported Sunday's protests against ''the ideology of globalism'' which is ''alien to Russian values.''
The announcements late Tuesday lent credence to fears expressed by Catholic leaders of a nationalistic campaign against what some Russian political forces and Orthodox leaders see as encroachment on their territory by the Vatican. In recent weeks, Russian officials have revoked the visas of two foreign Catholic priests working in Russia, and Catholic parishes have complained of harassment by local officials.
The sudden increase in Russian hostility toward the Catholic Church does not appear to be directly connected to a sex abuse scandal that has shaken the Catholic Church in the United States. Politicians and church officials have only hinted at what they term an assault on traditional Russian values.
''Now, we are seeing spiritual expansion,'' Gennady Raikov, a leader of the People's Party, which usually backs the Kremlin, told reporters Tuesday. ''The goal of our protest is to show that the Russian state is able to defend not only its borders, but its spirituality and values.''
The same day, Russian Orthodox priests flew over the southern city of Rostov-on-Don in a military helicopter to bless their hometown and protect it from ''foreign beliefs.''
''There is an invasion, an impudent invasion of Catholicism,'' the Rev. Vadim, a local Orthodox leader, told NTV television. ''Only by spiritual force and our common prayers can we stop this expansion.''
The icy relations have caused the Orthodox Church to block a proposed visit to Russia by Polish-born Pope John Paul II, even though President Vladimir Putin has said he would welcome a papal visit. The two faiths have been divided since the Great Schism of 1054.
A majority of Russia's 143 million citizens are nominally Orthodox, but numerous faiths and cults have flourished in post-Soviet Russia since the lifting of Communist-era bans on religious practice.
Angered by the Catholic Church's increased influence in Western Ukraine, where the pope visited last year, the Russian Orthodox leadership won legislation that limits the activities of rival faiths in Russia, but does not annul the right to choose religious beliefs freely.
Catholics say the Orthodox church has used its influence to block the building of new cathedrals. The Orthodox Church leadership has denied the allegations.
''Many Catholic believers have the impression that a large-scale anti-Catholic campaign has begun in Russia,'' the Rev. Igor Kovalevsky, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Russia, said at a news conference Monday.
Last weekend, 350 protesters marched outside the Catholic Church in Irkutsk, where Bishop Jerzy Mazur had worked since 1988. Last Friday, authorities refused entry to Mazur, a Polish citizen, telling him he had been declared persona non grata and could not return to his diocese in Siberia. Two weeks earlier, border guards revoked the visa of the Rev. Stefano Caprio, who has two parishes in central Russia.
Russian officials said they had received complaints about the priests but have not given details. Mazur, speaking by phone from the Warsaw suburb of Michalowice, said he did not know why he had been denied entry. He said that no one had ever complained to him about the new dioceses.
Mazur said he found Irkutsk very tolerant, and the authorities cooperative. He said he never experienced any harassment or discrimination.
Globe correspondent Brian Whitmore contributed to this report from Prague.