Roman Catholicism in Russia
Encyclopedia
The Roman Catholic Church in Russia is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church
, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope
in Rome
.
and Ukraine
) was converted in 988
, before the Great Schism (1054)
, it is somewhat anachronistic to talk of the Roman Catholic versus the Eastern Orthodox Church in the origins of Russian Christianity. However, the Great Schism of 1054 was actually the culmination of a long process and the churches had been in schism before that (e.g., the Photian schism
of the 9th century) and had been growing apart for centuries before that. Several 19th century Catholic historians argued that Russia became Catholic at the time of the Baptism, however this thesis has been rejected by most serious historians
Western sources indicate that Princess Olga sent an embassy to the Holy Roman Emperor
Otto I. Otto charged Bishop Adaldag
of Bremen with missionary work to the Rus'; Adaldag consecrated the monk Libutius of the Convent of St. Albano as bishop of Russia, but Libutius died before he ever set foot in Russia. He was succeeded by Adalbertus, a monk of the convent of St. Maximinus at Trier, but Adalbertus returned to Germany after several of his companions were killed in Russia.
Western sources also indicate that Olga's grandson, Prince Vladimir sent emissaries to Rome in 991 and that Popes John XV, and Sylvester II sent three embassies to Kiev. A German chronicler, Dithmar, relates that the Archbishop of Magdeburg consecrated a Saxon as archbishop of Russia and that the latter arrived in Russia, where he preached the Gospel and was killed there with 18 of his companions on February 14, 1002. At this same time, Bishop Reinbert of Kolberg accompanied the daughter of Boleslaus the Intrepid to her wedding when she married Vladimir's son Sviatopolk, (known to history as "the Damned" for his later murder of his half-brothers Boris and Gleb).Reinbert was arrested for his efforts to proselytize and died in prison. Bruno of Querfort was sent as a missionary bishop to the Pechenegs and spent several months in Kiev in 1008; he wrote a letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II in 1009.
These embassies to and from Rus' may be the basis for the somewhat fanciful account in the Russian Primary Chronicle of Prince Vladimir sending out emissaries to the various religions around Rus' (Islam, Judaism, Western and Eastern Christianity), including to the Catholic Church in Germany, although the emissaries returned unimpressed by Western Christianity, explaining in part the eventual adoption of Orthodox Christianity.
has, in fact, had a long aversion to Roman Catholicism. Metropolitan Ivan II (d. 1089) responded to a proposal of Antipope Clement III for a union of the churches with a letter enumerating the heresies of the Latins (Markovich attributes this letter to Metropolitan Ivan IV who died in 1166.) Metropolitan Nicepherus I (1103–1121) also considered Catholicism a heresy; this, in fact, has been the standard view in the Russian church up to the present day and not just among the heads of the church who were often Greeks sent from Constantinople. Thus, Archbishop Nifont of Novgorod (1135–1156) in the instructional "Questions of Kirik", responded that a woman who took her children to be baptised by a Catholic (the term "Varangian", that is, Viking, is used) priest was to incur the same penance as one who took them to be blessed by a pagan sorcerer. Other sources, including the Kormchaia Kniga (the code of canon law of the medieval Russian Church) attacked Catholicism as a heresy to be shunned. Up until the time of Metropolitan Isidor
(1431–1437), a Greek sent from Constantinople to preside over the Church in Rus, the metropolitans of Kiev had almost no contact with Rome.
This, however, did not mean that there was no Catholic presence in Rus'. The Teutonic Knights
and the Brothers of the Sword (subsummed into the Teutonic Order in 1227), Swedes, Danes, and other Catholic powers launched a series of crusades against Pskov, Novgorod, and other towns in northwestern Russia and the Novgorodians fought hard to keep Catholicism out of the Novgorodian Land, not merely due to religious differences, but also because Catholic converts among the Finnic tribesmen and/or the Slavic populace would pay taxes to and be part of the Catholic Churches and Catholic monarchies' administrative structures. Taxes, tribute, or military levies would then go to the Scandinavian kingdoms or the Germanic city-states of Livonia, or to the Lithuanians, and thus reduce Novgorod's wealth and overall security. In the 1330s, Poland took over Volynia in present-day Ukraine and, the Novgorodian Chronicles tell us, converted the Orthodox churches there into Catholic ones. In the 1330s and 1340s, King Magnus Eriksson
of Norway and Sweden launched a crusade against the Novgorodian land, preaching crusade and mustering armies in Livonia and Germany as well as in Sweden and Norway. In 1387, the Lithuanians, who had long threatened the western frontier, converted to Catholicism and united dynastically with the Poles. The Catholic Grand Princes, such as Vytautas the Great, attempted to establish separate metropolitanates in the Russian lands they controlled. The Russian church always fought against this, in large part out of fear that the new metropolitanates would be converted to Catholic provinces.
The popes, however, attempted more peaceful means of conversion as well; Pope Innocent IV sent two cardinals to Prince Aleksandr Nevskii in 1248, who famously rejected their appeal that he become Catholic. In 1255, Innocent met with success, dispatching a crown to Prince Daniil of Galich (Halych), in what is today Western Ukraine, the acceptance of which is taken to mean that Daniil accepted Catholicism. There were reports of Irish
monks fleeing the Mongol onslaught on Kiev in 1240, and Dominican
order was also dispatched by Pope Alexander IV
to central Russia in an effort to convert the region to Catholicism in the 14th century. The princes of Rus also married into Catholic dynasties: Prince Yarslav Vladimirovich and other princes married their daughters to Western princes; one of these dynastic marriages was, in fact, to a Holy Roman Emperor (although the marriage was an unhappy and ultimately failed one). Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavich (1054–68; 1069–73; 1076–78) sent his son to Pope Gregory VII
, asking for papal assistance and promising to make Russia a vassal of the Holy See. Gregory's reply letter is dated April 17, 1075. Grand Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich (1078–93) established the feast of the translation of the relics of St. Nicholas to Bari in Southern Italy, a feast approved by Pope Urban II (1088–99), who in 1091 sent Bishop Teodoro to Vsevolod with relics.
with its episcopal see in St. Petersburg and Tiraspol with its episcopal see in Saratov
. 150 Catholic parishes were present with more than 250 priests to serve around half a million Catholic believers in Russia.
During the 70 years of the Soviet time (1917–1987) many Roman Catholic faithful lost their life, were persecuted or sent to imprisonment for their faith. Besides being Christian, the Catholics had an additional stigma by belonging to a denomination that, unlike the Orthodox Christians, was (and still is) not considered indigenously Russian. By the end of the 1930-s, there were only two functioning Roman Catholic churches in the USSR: the Church of St. Louis in Moscow and the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in St. Petersburg.
In the aftermath of post-Civil-War famine
of 1921, the Catholic Church sent the so-called Papal Famine Relief Mission to Russia, headed by the American Jesuit Edmund A. Walsh
. The mission also succeeded in securing for the Vatican the Holy Relics of St. Andrew Bobola
, which were then transported to Rome by the Mission's Assistant Director, Louis J. Gallagher
.
There are approximately 750,000 Catholics in Russia - about 0.5% of the total population. For those of the Latin Rite there are four dioceses, including 1 archdiocese, plus an Apostolic Prefecture. Most Latin Rite Catholics are ethnic Russians or German-Russians
, with smaller numbers of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and Armenians There is a separate jurisdiction for those of the Byzantine Rite
(see Russian Catholic Church
), but it has extremely few followers.
In February 2002, the Catholic Apostolic Administrations were formed into one archdiocese in Moscow, and three dioceses in Novosibirsk, Saratov, and Irkutsk.
The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow has voiced his support for religious education in state sponsored schools, citing the examples of other countries.
Relations with the Russian Orthodox church have been rocky for nearly a millennium, and attempts at re-establishing Catholicism have met with opposition. Pope John Paul II for years expressed a desire to visit Russia, but the Russian Orthodox Church has for years resisted.
In April 2002, Bishop Jerry Mazur of Eastern Siberia was stripped of his visa, forcing the appointment of a new bishop for that diocese. In 2002, five foreign Catholic priests were denied visas to return to Russia, construction of a new cathedral was blocked in Pskov
, and a church in southern Russia was shot at. On Christmas Day 2005, Russian Orthodox activists planned to picket outside of Moscow's Catholic Cathedral, but the picket was cancelled. Despite the recent thawing of relations with the election of Pope Benedict XVI
, there are still issues such as the readiness of the police to protect Catholics and other minorities from persecution.
One thousand Russian Catholics gathered in the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Moscow to watch the Pope's funeral.
A 2004 Ecumenical conference was organized for Russia's "traditional religions" Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, and therefore excluded Catholicism, despite the fact that the Catholic population in Russia is roughly similar in size to the Buddhists and now larger than the Jews (due to Jewish emigration). Ethnic Russian Catholics still tend to face pressure and stigma for belonging to an "alien" sect.
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
Origins
Since Rus' (the Eastern Slavic polity that later came to be Russia, BelarusBelarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
) was converted in 988
988
Year 988 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* The offensive of al-Mansur against the Christian kingdoms continues. He attacks the heart of the kingdom of León...
, before the Great Schism (1054)
East-West Schism
The East–West Schism of 1054, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided the State church of the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively...
, it is somewhat anachronistic to talk of the Roman Catholic versus the Eastern Orthodox Church in the origins of Russian Christianity. However, the Great Schism of 1054 was actually the culmination of a long process and the churches had been in schism before that (e.g., the Photian schism
Photian schism
The Photian schism is a term for a controversy lasting from 863-867 between Eastern and Western Christianity....
of the 9th century) and had been growing apart for centuries before that. Several 19th century Catholic historians argued that Russia became Catholic at the time of the Baptism, however this thesis has been rejected by most serious historians
Western sources indicate that Princess Olga sent an embassy to the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
Otto I. Otto charged Bishop Adaldag
Adaldag
Adaldag was the seventh archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, from 937 until his death.He was of noble birth, a relation and pupil of Adalward, Bishop of Verden, and became canon of Hildesheim...
of Bremen with missionary work to the Rus'; Adaldag consecrated the monk Libutius of the Convent of St. Albano as bishop of Russia, but Libutius died before he ever set foot in Russia. He was succeeded by Adalbertus, a monk of the convent of St. Maximinus at Trier, but Adalbertus returned to Germany after several of his companions were killed in Russia.
Western sources also indicate that Olga's grandson, Prince Vladimir sent emissaries to Rome in 991 and that Popes John XV, and Sylvester II sent three embassies to Kiev. A German chronicler, Dithmar, relates that the Archbishop of Magdeburg consecrated a Saxon as archbishop of Russia and that the latter arrived in Russia, where he preached the Gospel and was killed there with 18 of his companions on February 14, 1002. At this same time, Bishop Reinbert of Kolberg accompanied the daughter of Boleslaus the Intrepid to her wedding when she married Vladimir's son Sviatopolk, (known to history as "the Damned" for his later murder of his half-brothers Boris and Gleb).Reinbert was arrested for his efforts to proselytize and died in prison. Bruno of Querfort was sent as a missionary bishop to the Pechenegs and spent several months in Kiev in 1008; he wrote a letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II in 1009.
These embassies to and from Rus' may be the basis for the somewhat fanciful account in the Russian Primary Chronicle of Prince Vladimir sending out emissaries to the various religions around Rus' (Islam, Judaism, Western and Eastern Christianity), including to the Catholic Church in Germany, although the emissaries returned unimpressed by Western Christianity, explaining in part the eventual adoption of Orthodox Christianity.
Roman Catholicism in Rus' From the Eleventh Century to the Council of Florence
The Russian Orthodox ChurchRussian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
has, in fact, had a long aversion to Roman Catholicism. Metropolitan Ivan II (d. 1089) responded to a proposal of Antipope Clement III for a union of the churches with a letter enumerating the heresies of the Latins (Markovich attributes this letter to Metropolitan Ivan IV who died in 1166.) Metropolitan Nicepherus I (1103–1121) also considered Catholicism a heresy; this, in fact, has been the standard view in the Russian church up to the present day and not just among the heads of the church who were often Greeks sent from Constantinople. Thus, Archbishop Nifont of Novgorod (1135–1156) in the instructional "Questions of Kirik", responded that a woman who took her children to be baptised by a Catholic (the term "Varangian", that is, Viking, is used) priest was to incur the same penance as one who took them to be blessed by a pagan sorcerer. Other sources, including the Kormchaia Kniga (the code of canon law of the medieval Russian Church) attacked Catholicism as a heresy to be shunned. Up until the time of Metropolitan Isidor
Isidore of Kiev
Isidore of Kiev, also known as Isidore of Thessalonica was a Greek Metropolitan of Kiev, cardinal, humanist, and theologian. He was one of the chief Eastern defenders of reunion at the time of the Council of Florence.-Early life:...
(1431–1437), a Greek sent from Constantinople to preside over the Church in Rus, the metropolitans of Kiev had almost no contact with Rome.
This, however, did not mean that there was no Catholic presence in Rus'. The Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
and the Brothers of the Sword (subsummed into the Teutonic Order in 1227), Swedes, Danes, and other Catholic powers launched a series of crusades against Pskov, Novgorod, and other towns in northwestern Russia and the Novgorodians fought hard to keep Catholicism out of the Novgorodian Land, not merely due to religious differences, but also because Catholic converts among the Finnic tribesmen and/or the Slavic populace would pay taxes to and be part of the Catholic Churches and Catholic monarchies' administrative structures. Taxes, tribute, or military levies would then go to the Scandinavian kingdoms or the Germanic city-states of Livonia, or to the Lithuanians, and thus reduce Novgorod's wealth and overall security. In the 1330s, Poland took over Volynia in present-day Ukraine and, the Novgorodian Chronicles tell us, converted the Orthodox churches there into Catholic ones. In the 1330s and 1340s, King Magnus Eriksson
Magnus IV of Sweden
Magnus Eriksson as Magnus IV was king of Sweden , including Finland, as Magnus VII King of Norway , including Iceland and Greenland, and also ruled Scania . He has also vindictively been called Magnus Smek...
of Norway and Sweden launched a crusade against the Novgorodian land, preaching crusade and mustering armies in Livonia and Germany as well as in Sweden and Norway. In 1387, the Lithuanians, who had long threatened the western frontier, converted to Catholicism and united dynastically with the Poles. The Catholic Grand Princes, such as Vytautas the Great, attempted to establish separate metropolitanates in the Russian lands they controlled. The Russian church always fought against this, in large part out of fear that the new metropolitanates would be converted to Catholic provinces.
The popes, however, attempted more peaceful means of conversion as well; Pope Innocent IV sent two cardinals to Prince Aleksandr Nevskii in 1248, who famously rejected their appeal that he become Catholic. In 1255, Innocent met with success, dispatching a crown to Prince Daniil of Galich (Halych), in what is today Western Ukraine, the acceptance of which is taken to mean that Daniil accepted Catholicism. There were reports of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
monks fleeing the Mongol onslaught on Kiev in 1240, and Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
order was also dispatched by Pope Alexander IV
Pope Alexander IV
Pope Alexander IV was Pope from 1254 until his death.Born as Rinaldo di Jenne, in Jenne , he was, on his mother's side, a member of the de' Conti di Segni family, the counts of Segni, like Pope Innocent III and Pope Gregory IX...
to central Russia in an effort to convert the region to Catholicism in the 14th century. The princes of Rus also married into Catholic dynasties: Prince Yarslav Vladimirovich and other princes married their daughters to Western princes; one of these dynastic marriages was, in fact, to a Holy Roman Emperor (although the marriage was an unhappy and ultimately failed one). Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavich (1054–68; 1069–73; 1076–78) sent his son to Pope Gregory VII
Pope Gregory VII
Pope St. Gregory VII , born Hildebrand of Sovana , was Pope from April 22, 1073, until his death. One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor affirming the primacy of the papal...
, asking for papal assistance and promising to make Russia a vassal of the Holy See. Gregory's reply letter is dated April 17, 1075. Grand Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich (1078–93) established the feast of the translation of the relics of St. Nicholas to Bari in Southern Italy, a feast approved by Pope Urban II (1088–99), who in 1091 sent Bishop Teodoro to Vsevolod with relics.
19th century
20th century
Before 1917 there were two dioceses in Russia: in MogilevMetropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev
The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev was a territorial division of the Roman Catholic Church, covering a significant proportion of the territory of the Russian empire....
with its episcopal see in St. Petersburg and Tiraspol with its episcopal see in Saratov
Saratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...
. 150 Catholic parishes were present with more than 250 priests to serve around half a million Catholic believers in Russia.
During the 70 years of the Soviet time (1917–1987) many Roman Catholic faithful lost their life, were persecuted or sent to imprisonment for their faith. Besides being Christian, the Catholics had an additional stigma by belonging to a denomination that, unlike the Orthodox Christians, was (and still is) not considered indigenously Russian. By the end of the 1930-s, there were only two functioning Roman Catholic churches in the USSR: the Church of St. Louis in Moscow and the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in St. Petersburg.
In the aftermath of post-Civil-War famine
Russian famine of 1921
The Russian famine of 1921, also known as Povolzhye famine, which began in the early spring of that year, and lasted through 1922, was a severe famine that occurred in Bolshevik Russia...
of 1921, the Catholic Church sent the so-called Papal Famine Relief Mission to Russia, headed by the American Jesuit Edmund A. Walsh
Edmund A. Walsh
Fr. Edmund Aloysius Walsh, S.J. was an American Jesuit Catholic priest, professor of geopolitics and founder of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, which he founded in 1919–six years before the U.S...
. The mission also succeeded in securing for the Vatican the Holy Relics of St. Andrew Bobola
Andrew Bobola
Andrew Bobola was a Polish missionary and martyr of the Society of Jesus, known as the apostle of Lithuania and the "hunter of souls".-Biography:...
, which were then transported to Rome by the Mission's Assistant Director, Louis J. Gallagher
Louis J. Gallagher
Louis J. Gallagher, SJ was an American Jesuit, known for his educational and literary work.-Biography:Born in Boston, Louis J...
.
21st century
History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
The German minority in Russia and the Soviet Union was created from several sources and in several waves. The 1914 census puts the number of Germans living in Russian Empire at 2,416,290. In 1989, the German population of the Soviet Union was roughly 2 million. In the 2002 Russian census, 597,212...
, with smaller numbers of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and Armenians There is a separate jurisdiction for those of the Byzantine Rite
Byzantine Rite
The Byzantine Rite, sometimes called the Rite of Constantinople or Constantinopolitan Rite is the liturgical rite used currently by all the Eastern Orthodox Churches, by the Greek Catholic Churches , and by the Protestant Ukrainian Lutheran Church...
(see Russian Catholic Church
Russian Catholic Church
The Russian Catholic Church is a Byzantine Rite church sui juris in full union with the Catholic Church. Historically it represents a schism from the Russian Orthodox Church. It is now in full communion with and subject to the authority of the Pope as defined by Eastern canon law...
), but it has extremely few followers.
|
|
- Apostolic Exarchate of Moscow
In February 2002, the Catholic Apostolic Administrations were formed into one archdiocese in Moscow, and three dioceses in Novosibirsk, Saratov, and Irkutsk.
The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow has voiced his support for religious education in state sponsored schools, citing the examples of other countries.
Relations with the Russian Orthodox church have been rocky for nearly a millennium, and attempts at re-establishing Catholicism have met with opposition. Pope John Paul II for years expressed a desire to visit Russia, but the Russian Orthodox Church has for years resisted.
In April 2002, Bishop Jerry Mazur of Eastern Siberia was stripped of his visa, forcing the appointment of a new bishop for that diocese. In 2002, five foreign Catholic priests were denied visas to return to Russia, construction of a new cathedral was blocked in Pskov
Pskov
Pskov is an ancient city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located in the northwest of Russia about east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population: -Early history:...
, and a church in southern Russia was shot at. On Christmas Day 2005, Russian Orthodox activists planned to picket outside of Moscow's Catholic Cathedral, but the picket was cancelled. Despite the recent thawing of relations with the election of Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
, there are still issues such as the readiness of the police to protect Catholics and other minorities from persecution.
One thousand Russian Catholics gathered in the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Moscow to watch the Pope's funeral.
A 2004 Ecumenical conference was organized for Russia's "traditional religions" Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, and therefore excluded Catholicism, despite the fact that the Catholic population in Russia is roughly similar in size to the Buddhists and now larger than the Jews (due to Jewish emigration). Ethnic Russian Catholics still tend to face pressure and stigma for belonging to an "alien" sect.