Word: patriarch
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...arrival of a new Patriarch is also creating plenty of anticipation among religious leaders outside of Russia. Attending Alexy's funeral last month was an impressive array of clerics from dozens of countries and religions, including the main branches of Christianity. Notably, several prominent Catholic Cardinals showed up. Rome has no sway over the Orthodox Church's choice, but it is deeply interested in the new Patriarch. The 1-billion-strong Catholic Church is eager to forge closer ties to the largest branch of Orthodox Christianity after a millennium of prickly (at best) relations following the Great Schism...
...from the same cloth - fantastically adept at identifying the most important signs amid the smoke-and-mirrors maneuvering of their respective subjects. This month, both have their eye on the same thing: the plot turns inside the Russian Orthodox Church, which is weighing a successor to longtime Patriarch Alexy II, who died last month...
...Russian Orthodox Church's Local Council, which includes both clerics and laymen chosen by parishes and is the church's highest decision-making body, will elect a new Patriarch in the next few weeks. Among the names being mentioned are Metropolitan Filaret, the scholarly patriarchal exarch of Belarus; Metropolitan Cyril, the well-known head of the external-relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate; and Metropolitan Kliment, the more liberal administrator of the Patriarchate. (See pictures of Russia's victory...
...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...