Senior Russian Orthodox cleric meets Pope

VATICAN CITY, May 18 (Reuters) A senior cleric from the Russian Orthodox Church held a rare meeting with Pope Benedict today in a latest sign that once icy relations between the churches were thawing, Vatican sources said.

Metropolitan Kirill, the head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, delivered a message to Benedict from Patriarch Alexiy II, the sources said, without providing details.

The Pontiff spoke to Kirill about the possibility of sending a Vatican delegation to an inter-religious summit to be held in Russia in July.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which split from Rome in the Great Schism of 1054, had chilly relations with the late John Paul II, a Pole who had campaigned against the atrocities of communism and sought in vain to visit post-communist Russia.

But senior Vatican officials have said they are working towards an eventual meeting between Benedict and Alexiy. Kirill was one of the most senior clerics from the Russian Orthodox Church to meet Benedict since he was elected in 2005.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Orthodox Church has made a strong comeback, although it is very sensitive to attempts by other churches to expand in Russia.

One of the main sticking points in relations has been Russian Orthodox suspicion that the Vatican tried to win over Orthodox believers to Catholicism after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

After a break of more than four years, theological dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches resumed in December with a meeting of an international Catholic-Orthodox theological commission. The first plenary session is due in September.

Since the start of his pontificate, Benedict has shown a preference for working with the Orthodox, who are closer to the Catholics in many teachings than the Protestant churches.

Reuters SK GC051