Nicaragua open to development of relations with S Ossetia, Abkhazia

MANAGUA, July 30 (Itar-Tass) - Nicaragua is open to a further
development of relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia and it awaits
proposals in this sphere from the two new countries, Foreign Minister
Samuel Santos said in an interview with Itar-Tass.
He admitted that Nicaraguan-South Ossetian and Nicaraguan-Abkhazian
relations have not seen any major impetus so far.
"We exchanged the appropriate messages and received expressions of
gratitude from both countries, as well as the information saying they
still had to resolve some problems before launching a practical
rapprochement and opening diplomatic missions," Santos said.
He indicated that the situation is developing along an undisturbed and
normal pattern.
"We understand that a year is brief enough a period of time and that
the two countries are going through a period of maturing and planning of
their foreign policy activity," Santos said.
"The whole thing depends now on how fast the organizational period
will develop and on the opportunities for unfolding activity in various
areas that will be offered to us," he said.
The ball now is in Abkhazia and South Ossetia's half the pitch and
Nicaragua is waiting for new proposals to consider, Santos said.

.Russian Patriarch's visit to Ukraine getting increasingly politicized.

MOSCOW, July 30 (Itar-Tass) - Current visit to Ukraine by the
Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill /Cyril/ that the Russian
Orthodox Church describes as an exclusively pastoral one, is getting
increasingly more politicized, as different political forces in Ukraine
are trying to use it for their own purposes in the run-up to the
presidential election.
On this background, the Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox community remains
split in spite of the Patriarch's calls for reunification, although,
frankly speaking, the Russian Orthodox Church did not set itself the goal
of overcoming the split this time.
Ukraine has at least three major factions of Orthodoxy today - the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church reporting to Kiev Patriarchate that broke away from the
Moscow Patriarch's See after the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, and
the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church founded in 1917.
All the attempts to unite them into a single church organization have
proved futile so far.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate has the
biggest congregation today and it fights with Kiev Patriarchate for the
ownership of church buildings.
Although Patriarch Kirill said before departure for Kiev that his trip
would be free of political aspects, Ukrainian politicians laying claims
for the presidential office do not miss a single chance to use it for
their own political needs.
President Viktor Yushchenko has once again called for setting up a
united Ukrainian Church that would be independent from Moscow.
The opposition Regions Party traditionally supports Moscow
Patriarchate and the Regions leader, former Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovich attended a church service led by the Patriarch.
On the face of it, incumbent Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has a
more neutral stance, as her electorate consists of disciples of a variety
of religious denominations.
All the three politicians have spoken about the reunification of
Orthodox communities in Ukraine, although under different jurisdictions.
"I trust that the establishment of a united national Orthodox Church
in Ukraine would be an act of great historical truth and justice for
Ukraine," President Yushchenko said.
Timoshenko voiced the conviction that an organized unity of Churches
will be attained sooner or later.
Yanukovich said, on his part, that this "very significant will unite
the people of Ukraine and the Orthodox congregation."
As for Patriarch Kirill, he urged the dissenters "to return to the
Father's house and to reunite with us."
However, radical nationalists from the organization called the
Ukrainian National Assembly/Ukrainian Nationalistic Self-Defense /the
Ukrainian acronym UNA- Berkut UNSO/ gave everyone to understand that the
latter is scarcely in the cards. During the first two days of the
Patriarch's visit, servicemen of the police special task force had to
separate the believers who came to see the supreme hierarch of the Church,
from the protesting nationalist who shouted slogans like 'Down with the
Moscow colonizer pope!' and 'Kirill is the Ambassador of a Religious War
in Ukraine'. Monday, the UNA/UNSO activists and their ideological
adversaries from among the Orthodox Cossacks measured swords with each
other in a major brawl.
The nationalists say they will trace Kirill in all the cities and
towns he plans visiting. Their list is expansive enough, as the Patriarch
is going to visit, apart from Kiev, the Volyn area and the Ternopol region
in the country's west, as well as Donetsk and the Crimea where Moscow
Patriarchate has the biggest number of followers.
Tuesday, His Holiness chanted a liturgy in Kiev's famous Monastery of
the Caves. The event brought together some 10,000 people, while several
dozens of activists of the Orthodox organizations unrecognized by Moscow
Patriarchate were picketing the monastery's compound.
The dissenters organized a Cross-bearing procession along Kiev's
central streets where they carried anti-Moscow slogans. A column of
several thousand people was led by the Patriarch of Kiev Filaret whom the
Russian Church issued anathema to in 1997. He said Tuesday he would like
to meet with Kirill but His Holiness made it clear he did have any wish to
meet with Filaret or anyone else of the dissenting faction.
Filaret commands sizable enough a number of parishes - no less than
4,500, while Moscow Patriarchate has about 12,000 parishes in its domain.
The





dissenting Church
leader described Kirill's visit "as another step towards uniting Ukraine
and Belarus around Moscow."
He believes Kirill has scheduled trips to Donetsk and the Crimea for
very practical reasons, as "these are the centers where all things
anti-Ukrainian concentrate."
Experts believe that the meeting between President Yushchenko and the
Moscow Patriarch did not do anything to change the situation with the
split of the Church in Ukraine.
Kirill voiced the opinion suggesting that the Yushchenko
Administration should give up the attempts to interfere in Church affairs.
He gave an interview to Ukrainian mass media on the eve of his departure
for Kiev and said the national Church had already been set up in Ukraine
and that this was the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow
Patriarchate.
As for the followers of other Church organizations, His Holiness
believes they will be able to join the body of the canonical Mother Church
after repenting and confessing the sin of dissention.
"In essence, the meeting turned into a diplomatic act that didn't
change anything in the situation around Orthodoxy in Ukraine," Kommersant
Daily quotes Roman Lunkin, the director of the Institute of Religion and
Law. "The Patriarch has shown he won't go as far as revising the status of
the canonical Church in Ukraine, while Yushchenko showed his resolve to
stand firm on the idea of an independent Church."
"Yushchenko's optimism is overblown in what concerns creation of the
Ukrainian national Orthodox Church," Ukrainian scholar of religion Andrei
Yurash says. "It's true that Moscow's policy has become more flexible with
Kirill's arrival in the Patriarch's Office, his position remains quite
tough. It stipulates that the Orthodox believers in Ukraine and Russia
continue sharing a common civilization."
In the meantime, Mikhail Beletsky, an expert at the Kiev-based Center
for Political Research and Studies of Conflicts told the POLITCOM.ru
portal that Yushchenko will refrain from making a row with the Russian
Church.
"The President's representatives have to reckon with the fact that the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church /reporting to Moscow Patriarchate/ plays serious
enough a role in society," Beletsky said. "Yushchenko has an unfriendly
stance towards the Russian Church because he generally views Russia as an
unfriendly country."
"On the other hand, Yushchenko is cautious enough and he tries to
observe the norms of commonly accepted politeness in relations with Moscow
Patriarchate so as to avoid a spoiling of relations with the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church," Beletsky said.
"No clear construct is taking shape expect a free-for-all that has
engulfed the conflicting sides," Nezavisimaya Gazeta says. "It is clear as
daylight that the disciples of the Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate
continue visiting their churches and the disciples of Kiev Patriarchate
continue attending theirs. One may get an impression that hierarchs of the
Russian Church find it much easiver to tap common positions with Roman
Catholics or Protestants than with their brethren in faith who have broken
away."
Dr Andrei Kurayev of the Moscow Theological Academy believes, however,
that the Patriarch's visit did not aim to overcome the split within the
Ukrainian national Orthodox Church.
"In the first place, he went there to meet with members of his own
congregation, while talks with the dissenters were not on his agenda." Dr
Kurayev told POLITCOM.ru news portal. "The case in hand was to support
people, to set the scene for spiritual joy among all those who keep up
fidelity to our spiritual unity, to our common faith, to our historical
pathways during the past very problematic twenty years."
-0-kle