Relations Warms Between Russian Orthodox Church and Vatican

By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY
May 22, 2009

MOSCOW — Festivities in Rome this weekend for the dedication of an Orthodox church on the grounds of the Russian Embassy near the Vatican attest to a surprising but marked warming of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican in recent months, according to church officials and analysts.

If trends hold true, they add, a meeting of the pope and the patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Russia may be close. Whether even that could begin to overcome the centuries-old hatred surrounding the two churches’ conflicting authority over Christians is another question. the rest