WHEN Cardinal Walter Kasper arrives in Moscow next week to meet Patriarch Aleksei II in an attempt to improve relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, he may well be taken to visit the Star nightclub. But the prelate will not be boogying on the dance floor, for the club is being converted into the third Roman Catholic church in the city.

Cardinal Kasper, head of the Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, will make a five-day visit starting on Monday. This will be the highest-level visit by Vatican officials in four years. A scheduled visit by Kasper two years ago was cancelled after Orthodox outrage over the Vatican’s decision to upgrade its four apostolic administrations to dioceses. Any prospect of a visit to Russia by the Pope was scuppered by this move.

Catholics are a minority in the Russian Federation. According to the Vatican, they total 784,000, the majority being of Polish, Lithuanian or German descent. In Moscow, which has a population of about ten million, there are an estimated 60,000 Catholics, divided into seven parishes but served by only two churches, St Louis of France and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Christianity has been undergoing a rebirth. The Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Christian denomination by far, now has 24,000 churches and 638 monasteries, compared to 7,000 churches and 21 monasteries in 1988. In addition, numerous theological colleges have opened.

However, relations between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches are at their lowest point in many years. The fault line that was opened up at the great schism in 1054, when Christendom split into East and West, Greek and Latin, remains a cause of friction to this day.

The mutual excommunications imposed at the great schism were not lifted until 1972 when Pope Paul V1 met Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras. While Orthodox, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists are classified officially as “traditional denominations”, Catholics still are not.

The Vatican’s decision in 2002 to upgrade the four apostolic administrations in Moscow, Saratov, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk to fully fledged diocese status, and to elevate the former apostolic administrator, Monsignor Tadeusz Kondrusiwicz, to Metropolitan Archbishop of Moscow, drew a storm of protest from the Orthodox Patriarchate. Patriarch Aleksei II and the Holy Synod released a statement, describing the move as “ unfriendly” and claimed that the Catholic Church saw Russia as a field for missionary activity.

The Orthodox Church constantly accuses Catholics of proselytising in what it calls its “canonical territory”, often citing Ukraine, which the Pope visited in 2001, as an example. The revival of the Greek Catholic Church, or uniates, in western Ukraine during the last years of Soviet rule, infuriated members of the Orthodox Church.

In his first interview with Western journalists since 2002, Patriarch Aleksei reiterated Orthodox complaints against Catholics. “Unfortunately relations are not at their best today because the proselytising activity of the Roman Catholic Church is being carried out in both Russia and in CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. Many missionary orders work in Russia today, especially in the shelters and orphanages, where children who have been baptised in Orthodoxy are being converted to Catholicism.”

Deep wounds have been inflicted by Uniate Catholics in the western area of Ukraine, he added. “Hundreds of thousands of Orthodox believers are a humiliated minority. The Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine was banned by Stalin, and during the postwar period both those who returned to the Orthodox Church and those who remained Uniates received pastoral care in the Orthodox churches in the western Ukraine. Many clergy of the Greek Catholic Church who studied in our seminaries, particularly at the St Petersburg Theological Seminary and Academy, are serving in Ukraine today.”

Father George Jagodzinski, a Polish Divine Word Missionary, who raised a loan to buy the former nightclub in Lublino, a suburb in the south of Moscow, rejects the claims that Catholics are proselytising. “Two years ago the Orthodox Patriarchate issued a letter accusing Catholics of proselytising. I have never had any intention to convert any Orthodox to Catholicism. But we have to ask what does it mean to be Orthodox? Last Easter Sunday in Moscow only 1.2 per cent of the population attended church services.”

Apart from building bridges with Rome, Patriarch Aleksei has much work to do to reunify the Moscow Patriarchate with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, commonly referred to as the “white Church”, as opposed to the “red Church”. Made up of believers who fled into exile after the revolution, it severed all links with Moscow in 1927 when Patriarch Sergei recognised the Soviet authorities and started co-operating with them. The white Church, which has its administrative centre in New York, has accused Moscow not only of selling out to atheistic Communists but also of “the sin of ecumenism”.

Traditionally pro-monarchist, in 1981 the Orthodox Church Abroad beatified Tsar Nicholas II and his family, who were murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918. The decision by the Moscow Patriarchate to follow suit in 2000, describing the Romanovs as “passion bearers”, or martyrs, was seen as a significant step towards unity, something Patriarch Aleksei set his sights on some time ago.

The Patriarch has emphasised that he is not anti-Catholic, and that, during his time as president of the Council of European Churches, he had a very good relationship with the European Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops.

Behind his public criticisms of the Catholic Church in Russia, he may, in fact, harbour less hostile feelings. After all, as elements on both sides have argued, the greatest threat to both churches in Russia is the steady advance of Western secular ideas. But what is seen as Catholic proselytising on Russian Orthodox soil lies at the heart of any improvement in relations between the Vatican and Moscow.

Some say that for the Patriarch to give ground on this issue would cause confusion among his flock in Russia and set back any reunification with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Cardinal Kasper will certainly have his work cut out.