MOSCOW - A top Kremlin foreign policy official criticized the Catholic Church on Friday for upgrading its presence in Russia, but condemned a lawmaker's proposal to ban Catholic activity and said Catholics pose no threat to the country.
The Catholic Church elevated its apostolic administrations in Russia to full-fledged dioceses in February, prompting outrage from the dominant Russian Orthodox Church, who called it an attempt to poach Orthodox believers.
"It was tactless of the Catholics to take any unilateral steps without informing either the Russian Orthodox Church or the Foreign Ministry about them," Sergei Abramov, first deputy head of the Kremlin foreign policy department, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.
The Rev. Igor Kovalevsky of the Catholic Church headquarters in Russia insisted that the church had notified both the Foreign Ministry and the Orthodox leadership of the decision in advance.
He expressed surprise at Abramov's comments, saying that Abramov had met Tuesday with the leader of Russia's Roman Catholic community and offered support in the church's struggles with anti-Catholic sentiment recently.
Despite the rebuke, Abramov was also quoted as saying that the church's creation of dioceses was not illegal, and that there were therefore no grounds for a proposal by parliament member Viktor Alksnis to ban Catholic activity. The State Duma was scheduled to discuss the proposal Wednesday but the debate was postponed.
Abramov noted the Catholics' small share of the Russian population — about 600,000 of Russia's 144 million people — and said, "there is no threat to Orthodoxy in Russia." About two-thirds of Russians consider themselves Orthodox.
The diocese issue further soured Orthodox-Russian relations, which had long been strained over a dispute over church property in western Ukraine and Orthodox accusations of Catholic proselytizing.