RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH PLEASED WITH PUTIN'S VISIT TO POPE

President Withholds Pope's Invitation to Visit Russia

MOSCOW, (ZENIT.org).- The Moscow Patriarchate expressed satisfaction over the fact that President Vladimir Putin did not invite John Paul II to visit Russia during the meeting he attended yesterday with the Pontiff in the Vatican.

Vsievolod Ciaplin, spokesman for Patriarch Alexy II, said that not inviting the Pope to travel to Russia was "a wise and moderate position."

Putin's decision "is worthy of great respect," the spokesman added. The Moscow Patriarchate recognizes that the Russian President had the right to invite the Pontiff but, in this way, manifested its understanding that the "question cannot be addressed by separating it from relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church and, more generally, from the problem of relations between State and Church in Russia."

Yesterday, in responding to journalists, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said that there are still hopes for a possible Papal trip to Moscow. "A door remains open until it is definitively closed," he said.

Both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin invited John Paul II to visit Russia. Therefore, many expected that Putin would renew the invitation. However, according to Navarro-Valls, the topic was not touched upon, at least officially, during the 30-minute meeting between the Holy Father and the Russian President.

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