New Kazan church promotes tolerance and unity

It is so soothing and inspirational to see that there is good news amid all the trials and conflicts. I thank and commend the Kazan people and government for their tolerance and support for a brotherly and sisterly faith that also believes in the One God. And I am always encouraged when I see union with the Orthodox brethren and earnestly hope for much more.

http://www.zenit.org/article-23497?l=english

Pope Sends Blessing to New Church in Russia
Kazan's Catholics to Have Place for Worship

KAZAN, Russia, AUG. 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Angelo Sodano is bearing the blessing of Benedict XVI to a new church constructed in Kazan, where authorities of the Muslim-majority city have made the worship site possible.

Kazan, the capital city of the Republic of Tatarstan, will be home for the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross.

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Cardinal Sodano stressed the importance of this new church, both for the city's small Catholic community as well as for interreligious dialogue. The 300 or so Catholics in Kazan had been celebrating Mass in a cemetery chapel.

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Kazan is also an important site for the Orthodox, as it was the site of a 1579 apparition of the Virgin. The apparition is connected to the icon of the "Mother of God" of Kazan, which disappeared during the Russian Revolution. Venerated in its place in the Orthodox cathedral is a 17th-century reproduction of the icon, which belonged to the Holy See, and which Pope John Paul II gave to the Russian Orthodox Church in 2004. In a solemn ceremony in 2005, Patriarch Alexy II brought the icon to the city.

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On Wednesday, the cardinal visited the Orthodox Shrine of Our Lady of Kazan. Afterward he visited the Orthodox monastery of the Archangel Raphael. "We embraced in the name of Mary," he said. "The best ecumenism is in Mary's name, the spiritual ecumenism that unites us all."