Word: patriarch
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Like a new Pope stepping out of the conclave or the latest U.S. Supreme Court appointment, the election of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch comes with a fundamental question for anyone who's just nabbed a lifetime post atop his career ladder: Will he be in the future how he's been in the past...
Cyril, who'd been serving as interim head of the Church since the Dec. 5 death of Patriarch Alexy II, was particularly adept at keeping warm relations with both Kremlin insiders and religious counterparts outside of Russia. His many contacts with the West, including a meeting in 2007 with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, helped earn Cyril a reputation as a pragmatic reformer who favored moving his Church closer to Catholicism after a millennium-long schism...
Tensions had been easing under Benedict, who has made rapprochement with the Orthodox a priority of his papacy, but a hoped-for meeting never materialized between the new Pope and Alexy, who died after serving for 18 years as the first Patriarch in the post-Soviet era. (See pictures of Pope Benedict's visit to America...
...American Jesuit scholar Robert Taft, a Rome-based expert in Eastern Christian liturgy, cautions that Catholic-Orthodox relations should not be judged solely by "photo op" encounters between the Pope and Patriarch. "We are sister churches," said Taft. "There's never going to be a day when Orthodox become Catholics, or vice-versa. But we can move toward being in communion, with the Holy Trinity and with each other. That's what we're heading toward. It's a sharing of life...
...Cyril, who has been fulfilling the duties of Patriarch in the weeks since Alexy's death, is a well-known figure among ordinary Russians, with his own radio and television programs. Still, both Kremlinologists and Vaticanisti can agree that there are other factors that may be more important than popular appeal. For one thing, Cyril is on excellent terms with both Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev...