Moscow, Russia, Apr 17, 2008 / 02:38 am
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday released a message to Russia by way of a documentary that aired on a government-run television station in Moscow. The Pope lauded Russia’s “magnificent spirituality,” saying that the martyrdoms of both Catholic and Orthodox Christians in Russia during the last century showed the need to restore Christian unity.
The documentary film about the life of the Pope was sponsored and promoted by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The film was produced in close collaboration with the Moscow Patriarchate.
“I am grateful,” Pope Benedict said in the film, “for the invitation offered me to extend to you my cordial greetings and I gladly take this opportunity to express the esteem, affection and high regard in which the successor of Peter and the Catholic Church have always held your people and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russia is truly great, in a variety of different ways -- in her sheer geographical scale, in her long history, in her magnificent spirituality, in her multiplicity of artistic expression.”
The Pope said that Russia’s nobility had been obscured by “shadows of suffering and violence, shadows that were however opposed and overcome by the splendid light of so many martyrs.” Among the martyrs, he counted Orthodox, Catholic, and other believers.