Scottish Catholic Observer

Russian-Vatican relations have been fraught since Soviet times but Mr Putin is the first Kremlin leader since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to publicly profess religious faith—to the Orthodox Church—and has several times advocated ending the long spilt between the two major Christian churches.

Mr Putin and the Pope will hold their first meeting on November 25, a Vatican spokesman said last Thursday.

Mr Putin could invite the Holy Father to visit Russia, Russian diplomats have recently suggested.

Popes Benedict and John Paul II had standing invitations from the Russian Government but could not go because they received no matching invitation from the Orthodox Church. Pope Francis would need the same to go to Russia.

Another dispute between the churches concerns the fate of many church properties that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics, who worship in an Orthodox liturgy but swear allegiance to Rome.

Stalin gave the Catholic property to the Russian Orthodox Church, but after the fall of Communism, the Eastern Rite Catholics took back many sites, leading to a rise in tensions.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has resurged since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has some 165 million members in former Soviet republics including Russia and other states.

There have been signs of a general warming between the western and eastern branches of Christianity in recent months.

On March 20, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew became the first worldwide spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians to attend a Papal inaugural Mass since the Great Schism split western and eastern Christianity in 1054.