Vatican creates Russian dioceses

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican has announced the formation of dioceses in Russia, raising the profile of the Roman Catholic Church there and drawing a swift rebuke from the Russian Orthodox Church, which threatened to sever all contacts.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls described the creation of the four dioceses as normal administration prompted by "the need to improve the pastoral assistance to the Catholics present in that vast region, as they have insistently requested."

With Monday's decision "the Holy See has done nothing but equate the organization of the Catholic community in Russia with that present in other parts of the world, as foreseen by church law," Navarro-Valls said.

The four dioceses were created from four existing "apostolic administrations" and will be headed by churchmen already leading the Catholic flock in Russia.

Russian Orthodox bristles

But the Russian Orthodox Church immediately bristled at the Vatican's move, calling it part of the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to expand its influence and seek converts.

"All contacts between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican will likely be stopped" for an indefinite time period, "because we have nothing to talk about," the Russian church's chief of foreign relations, Metropolitan Kirill, said on Russia's RTR television.

Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Viktor Malukhin told The Associated Press a visit by Pope John Paul to Russia, already unlikely because of discord between the churches, "has become even more hypothetical."

"The dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church is facing extremely serious difficulties that are the Vatican's fault," Malukhin said.

Navarro-Valls said the Russian government had not objected to the dioceses. He also noted that the Orthodox church in Russia has always set up dioceses for its adherents in the West.

"The Catholic church hopes, thanks as well to its new reorganization, to be able to improve dialogue and collaboration with the Russian Orthodox church," the Vatican spokesman said.

Mending the rift

Pope John Paul II has given priority to improving the Vatican's relations with Orthodox Christians and has visited several Orthodox countries in recent years. But Russian Orthodox leaders remain resistant to the pope's efforts to mend the nearly 1,000-year-old rift between the churches.

The Russian Orthodox Church accuses Catholics of aggressively trying to win converts since the fall of Soviet bloc communism. Meanwhile, Catholics in Russia have been battling to win back buildings and other property that went to the Orthodox under communism.