HOLY SEE: PUTIN'S MEETINGS AT THE VATICAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 VATICAN 000065 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/22/2017 TAGS: PREL VT SUBJECT: HOLY SEE: PUTIN'S MEETINGS AT THE VATICAN REF: (a) Vatican 51, (b) ROME 535 VATICAN 00000065 001.2 OF 002 CLASSIFIED BY: Christopher Sandrolini, Charge d'affaires, EXEC, State. REASON: 1.4 (d) ¶1. (C) Summary. President Putin's visit to the Holy See and his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI evoked positive statements from both sides and contributed to warming relations between the Holy See and the Russian Orthodox Church. Little information has emerged about Putin's one-on-one with the Pope, but a corollary meeting of foreign ministers covered relations between the churches as well as broad discussions of human rights, terrorism, and Middle East issues. End summary. ¶2. (U) Russian President Vladimir Putin met Pope Benedict XVI in Rome March 13; the meeting, their first, lasted about half an hour and took place alone except for intepreters. Putin, accompanied by Foreign Minister Lavrov, also met Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Holy See's Secretary of State, and Archbishop Dominique Mamberti (respectively equivalent to prime minister and foreign minister). Putin brought greetings to the Pope from Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, and presented him with an icon of St. Nicholas. The Vatican issued a statement afterwards calling the talks -- held in German -- "very positive" and noting that discussions included relations between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Putin said during his visit that "the Patriarch of Moscow wishes to develop friendly relations between the two sister churches" and pledged that his government would "do all it can to favor dialogue between the two churches". ¶3. (C) Russian DCM Pavel Dyukarev (protect) spoke with Embassy Pol chief about about Lavrov's meeting. (Russia maintains a special diplomatic mission to the Holy See, headed by an ambassador, but the two countries do not have full diplomatic relations.) Lavrov spoke at length about the need to include an array of actors -- particularly Syria and Iran -- in dealing with Middle East issues, including Iraq, Lebanon, and other regional concerns. In general, the wider the net of regional participants, the better. Dyukarev said the Holy See was generally in agreement with this, as it always favors broad dialogue. There was also agreement on the need to combat terrorism; Bertone and Mamberti apparently chose not to raise Russian excesses in this regard, nor did they mention Russian human rights abuses. They did express significant concern over the problem of the disparity of wealth in today's Russia. Lavrov mentioned cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy See, citing a common commitment to human values and the dignity of the human person. ¶4. (C) Monsignor Julio Murat, the Russia country director at the Holy See's Secretariat of State, confirmed Dyukarev's account to Charge d'affaires. Charge pressed USG concerns about Russian human rights problems, but Murat said this had not come up in the talks with Putin or Lavrov. Asked about earlier reports that Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk (who has been active in ecumenical affairs) might accompany Putin to Rome, Murat commented that while Kirill's presence would have been welcome and interesting, his absence was no surprise, nor would his attendance have necessarily enabled any further progress (ref A). Although Kirill might be more favorable toward the Catholic Church than his peers, neither he nor the Patriarch would be able to do anything without broader agreement by other bishops, given the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church. Murat mused that reconcilation is a long path; the Holy See has been dealing with this for centuries and was prepared to be patient. ¶5. (C) Murat drew our attention to a March 1 interview given by Bishop Hilarion of Vienna, who is representing the Moscow patriarchate in planning for a joint Catholic-Orthodox commission on theological dialogue. In the interview Hilarion said a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Alexei II could take place this year, probably in a "neutral" location rather than in Italy or Russia. (While Catholics have sought such a meeting, the patriarchate has been wary, typically calling on the Vatican to renounce "proselytism" in Orthodox lands such as Russia and Ukraine.) Hilarion said that with dialogue between the churches moving ahead, prospects for a meeting and even for a subsequent papal visit to Moscow were improving. The bishop pointed out that the joint commission will meet in Ravenna in October of this year, and that both the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople were likely to attend. ¶6. (U) The meeting with the Pope was part of Putin's visit to Italy and Greece, which included a stop in the southern Italian city of Bari, where Putin visited the tomb of the city's patron saint, St. Nicholas -- also revered in Russia. The government of Italy returned to Russia the ownership of a Russian Orthodox church in Bari, also named for St. Nicholas, which had passed into the city's hands in 1937, after the collapse of Italy's Russian Orthodox population following the Russian revolution. The city's mayor noted that Pope Benedict XVI had urged local authorities to make Bari a bridge between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches. Comment VATICAN 00000065 002.2 OF 002 -------------- ¶7. (C) Murat was reluctant to characterize Putin's visit in too grand a fashion, but he did feel it had brought some progress, noting that Russian authorities had come to recognize the value of religious cooperative efforts to confront social problems. While the state/church issues are mainly separate, this positive (if symbolic) visit cannot hurt the Holy See-ROC relationship. Now it will be up to the two Churches to find enough common ground to agree on a third-country location for a meeting between Benedict and Alexei. SANDROLINI