Ties between the Russian Orthodox Church...

"Dialog with the Roman Catholic Church has been intensified," said Archbishop Ilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Moscow Patriarchy"s foreign church relations. "We have been working to resolve problems that hinder a breakthrough in our relations."

He told a news conference it was too early to talk about "an exact date and venue" for a meeting of Russian Patriarch Kirill and Pope Benedict XVI as their meeting "should still be thoroughly prepared."

Ilarion again cited problems in western Ukraine, where hundreds of Orthodox churches were handed over to Greek-Catholic parishes after the atheist Soviet regime collapsed in the 1990s.

The archbishop said the Russian church expects the Vatican to step in and make up for the loss for Orthodox believers in the region.

Catholic proselytism has been cited by Russian church officials as the main obstacle to moves to bridge the 1054 schism that divided the Christian churches and resulted in political and theological

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