Political headaches bedevil a non-statesman pope

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

In his encyclical Deus caritas est, Benedict XVI wrote that the church must keep its distance from “partisan strategies and programs,” but, at the same time, that the faith must play a vital role in shaping public life.

That’s a distinction easy in theory but often muddy in practice, a point brought home anew by the recent hoopla concerning Benedict XVI, Turkey, and the European Union. The issue is likely to resurface this week, when Benedict receives Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece, a nation where 98 percent of the population of 11 million is baptized into the Orthodox faith, and which has long been Turkey's chief regional rival.

The Dec. 13-16 visit to the Vatican, the first ever by a leader of the Orthodox Church in Greece, happens to coincide with an EU summit in Brussels which may result in a partial freeze in talks with Turkey, in part due to disputes over the island of Cyprus. In that context, the meeting between Benedict and Christodoulos will be scrutinized for potential political significance, especially given the fiercely nationalistic reputation of the Greek Orthodox Church.

That's perhaps an especially frustrating fact of life for Benedict XVI, a cerebral and spiritual figure without the same gusto for statesmanship that characterized his predecessor, John Paul II.

Cyprus has been divided between rival Greek and Turkish communities since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a failed coup staged by supporters of union with Greece. The EU has made loosening its grip on Cyprus a condition of Turkey’s membership bid.

The Turkish government in Cyprus is not recognized by the Holy See, or by any other government expect for Ankara.

During his recent trip to Turkey, Benedict distanced himself from his earlier position, expressed while still a cardinal, in opposition to Turkey’s candidacy. In Ankara he took a more neutral stance, though with the caveat that membership should be conditional upon human rights guarantees, especially religious freedom.

From Benedict’s point of view, of course, the primary context for Christodoulos’ visit is ecumenical, not political. It’s a continuation of a cautious détente between Athens and Romes that began with John Paul II’s 2001 visit to Greece. In the aftermath of that visit, the Vatican and the Greek Holy Synod have exchanged delegations, and Christodoulos himself attended the funeral Mass of Pope John Paul II in April 2005.

Try as Benedict might to pitch such events on an exclusively spiritual plane, however, politics inevitably has a way of intruding.

In November, for example, Benedict met Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos, who gave the pontiff an album of photographs of churches destroyed in northern Cyprus under the Turkish intervention – an act widely perceived as a bid to enlist the pope’s support for fellow Christians suffering under Muslim rule.

“Such destruction ... incredible,” Benedict uttered, according to pool reporters who covered the greeting before the pontiff and the president began their private talks. Though the Vatican had no official comment afterwards, the mere fact he received the book was interpreted in some circles as a quiet endorsement of the Greek Cypriot cause.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, for example, defined the gift as a “provocative act.”

In an apparent response, during their own Nov. 28 meeting in Ankara, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer presented the pope with another book, this one titled, “Erasing the Past: Turkish Cypriot Culture’s Religious Heritage under the Control of the Greek Cypriot Administration.”

Predictably enough, the pope’s silence once again was taken by some in the Turkish press as a form of quiet consent.

In that light, many in both Greece and Turkey no doubt will view the Christodoulos meeting with Benedict as a kind of “balancing act” vis-à-vis the pope’s recent trip to Turkey, his softened stance on EU membership, and EU debates over the fate of Cyprus.

It’s unlikely Benedict will actually say anything about Cyprus, the EU, or Greek-Turkish tensions. Yet because the Vatican generally issues only anodyne statements about the content of these meetings, all sides generally can interpret them in different ways.

Historically, the Vatican has long tried to balance its support for a negotiated settlement in Cyprus along the lines of United Nations resolutions condemning the invasion, against its desire not to take sides in ancient Turkish-Greek rivalries.

Under Pope Paul VI, the Vatican expressed “concern” over the 1974 Turkish invasion and mobilized relief efforts for displaced civilians. When the Turkish Cypriots declared independence in 1983, John Paul II upped the ante to “anguished concern,” calling for “frank dialogue” under the auspices of the international community.

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As complicated as navigating the shoals of Turkish-Greek tensions are for a pope dedicated to improving relations both with Muslims and with the Orthodox, it may be that ecclesiastical politics prove equally thorny when Christodoulos arrives in Rome on Wednesday.

The Greek Orthodox traditionally see themselves as custodians of the Orthodox faith in its most pure form, and hence have been especially suspicious of Rome’s ecumenical overtures. When John Paul II visited Greece in 2001, for example, more than 2,000 Orthodox monks and activists marched in Athens in protest ahead of the trip, and some Orthodox monasteries rung mourning bells while the pope was on Greek soil.

John Paul was forced to leave behind a member of his normal entourage, Cardinal Ignace Moussa Daoud, Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, because Daoud is a member of the Syriac Rite and hence considered a “uniate” by the Greeks – in effect, an Orthodox who “sold out” by entering into union with Rome.

In a meeting in the archbishop’s palace in Athens during that 2001 visit, Christodoulos – who, ironically, is known as something of an ecumenical “dove” on his home turf – delivered a tongue-whipping to John Paul the likes of which few popes have ever heard in person.

He informed the pope that “a large part of the church of Greece opposes your presence here.” He said the frosty welcome arose from the “unbrotherly behavior of the western Christian world” toward the Orthodox. Christodoulos said that “open wounds” remain alive in Greek memory, such as “the destructive mania of the Crusaders” as well as the “unlawful proselytizing” of the Eastern Catholic churches, made up of believers who follow Orthodox rites but profess loyalty to Rome.

“Indeed, on many occasions in our history, our people bitterly noted that the powerful church of Rome denied it during difficult moments,” Christodoulos said. For Christodoulos, the bottom line was that Orthodoxy had an apology coming.

He didn’t have long to wait.

“For occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us the forgiveness we beg of him,” the pope said, speaking in a halting English. The instant the words left his lips, Christodoulos burst into strong applause, joined by other Orthodox bishops in the room.

That gesture of contrition played to widely positive reviews, and opened the door to a thawing of historical tensions.

Yet Greek resentments of Rome are far from resolved, as witnessed by the fact that just this past May, Christodoulos’ own Holy Synod voted 42-15 against his intention to go to Rome to meet the pope.

It was only as Benedict’s trip to Turkey loomed, including his planned meeting with Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, that Christodoulos was able to persuade the Synod that the Orthodox in Greece should not be left behind.

While in Rome, Christodoulos will receive a section of the chain traditionally believed to have bound St. Paul from Benedict XVI in a special ceremony at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. St. Paul has special significance for the Greek Orthodox, since it was at the Acropolis in Athens that the apostle preached his famous sermon on the “unknown God.”

Gifts of relics have become an important instrument of papal outreach to the Orthodox world. In 2004, for example, John Paul II returned relics of St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom, both fourth century theologians who had also served as Patriarchs of Constantinople, to Bartholomew I in a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica.

During Benedict’s Turkey trip, the Patriarchate of Constantinople distributed a commemorative DVD marking the return of the relics, which had been in the possession of the Catholic Church since they were brought to Rome following the sack of Constantinople by Crusaders in 1204.

The Lateran University, known informally as “the pope’s university” because of its location at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, will also confer an honorary degree upon Christodoulos.

While the visit of Christodoulos is considered a significant achievement for Benedict’s aspiration to promote Christian unity, few expect any concrete new breakthroughs to result quickly.