Russian Orthodox Official: Time for Solidarity

Visits Pope and Ecumenism Council President in the Vatican
ROME, SEPT. 21, 2009

(Zenit.org).- Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev says there are so many reasons for Catholics and Orthodox to cooperate in our de-Christianized world that it is time to move past divisions and competition and exist in solidarity and mutual love.

The archbishop affirmed this after he met in the Vatican on Friday with Benedict XVI and on Thursday with Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The cardinal invited the archbishop, who since March has been the chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Archbishop Alfeyev was already well-known at the Vatican, having previously been the Russian Orthodox Church's representative to the European Institutions in Brussels. He is also an accomplished composer, using his music to bring East and West together. His interpretation of St. Matthew's account of the Passion was performed at the Vatican before Easter in 2007; his Christmas oratorio premiered that year at a Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.. the rest