Historical Background to

THE VATICAN-MOSCOW AGREEMENT

by Alexis Ulysses Floridi, S.J.
The primary obstacle preventing the bishops' obedience to Our Lady of Fatima's
request to consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart is the Vatican-Moscow
Agreement. Since the time when we documented the existence of that
agreement, in Issue No. 16 and 17 of The Fatima Crusader, no one has brought
forth any evidence to disprove it. A few, like Bishop Brzana of Ogdensburg
prefer not to examine the evidence, but only denounce us for publishing the
fact.
In order to demonstrate the fact that The Fatima Crusader is not alone in
publishing facts and information relative to this ill-advised accord, we publish
here the findings of the Moscow-Vatican expert, Father Ulysses Floridi, S.J.,
author of the bookMoscow and the Vatican.
At the end of this article we carry a brief extract which has more recently come
to our attention, in which Malachi Martin, author of the book, The Jesuits,
published in 1987, not only affirms the existence of the Vatican-Moscow
Agreement, but also maintains that Pope John Paul II has personally agreed to
carry it on.
The election of Pope John XXIII and the announcement of the Vatican Council II
(1959) brought no change in the stormy relations. The assumption of atheist
writers was that the Pope was new, but the "course" remained "old" and that
the Council was summoned in an attempt to halt the flight of the faithful from
the Church, to reaffirm papal absolutism and combat Communism.(1) On these
same assumptions the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate based their early
criticism of Pope John and their rejection of the Council. This writer was drawn
into a bitter exchange with the editor-in-chief of the journal of the Moscow
Patriarchate, the late Professor Alexander Shishkin. He furiously attacked my
article published in La CIvilta Cattolica.(2) In it I charged, as I have
consistently, that the Church of Moscow was borrowing its anti-Roman
arguments from Soviet atheistic propaganda and bore the responsibility for the
destruction of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. In his five-page reply, Professor
Shishkin accused me of "anti-Communist blindness" and of "being incapable of
thinking realistically". He went on to question the "humility" and good intentions
of Pope John in summoning the Council.(3) Patriarch Alexei declared that the
Council was an internal affair of the Roman Catholic Church and to the last
moment declined the invitation to send observers to the Council with a definite
"non possumus".(4)

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At the first All-Christian Peace Assembly in Prague (June 13-18, 1961)

Metropolitan Nikodim presented a lengthy paper in which he blamed the
worldliness of the papal system, predicted the collapse of the Catholic Church
and praised the proposals of Nikita Krushchev as the only alternative to a real
Christian peace in the world. Nikodim wrote:
. . . The theory of the Pope is the clearest and most concentrated expression of
the spirit of external legalism and worldliness which has considerably penetrated
into the teaching and life of the Catholic Church . . .
It is not just by accident that the abyss between the Vatican and progressive
mankind is getting wider every day. It seems to us that a conflict between the
masses of Catholic believers on the one hand and the leaders of the Vatican on
the other is inevitable. This conflict has already started by the liquidation of
unions such as that of Brest, so important for the Vatican as a bridgehead for
penetration into the East . . .
It is well known to all that N. S. Krushchev, head of the Soviet delegation to the
sixth session of the General Assembly of the UN, submitted for the discussion in
the UN basic proposals for an agreement on universal and total disarmament.
Do these humane acts of the Government of our country go counter to the
demands of Christian conscience? By no means! . . . Is it not the main task of
modern Christian conscience to conform as closely as possible to that aim? . . .
(5)
Suddenly, three months later, Nikita Krushchev contradicted Metropolitan
Nikodim. In an interview with the correspondents of Pravda and Izvestiia the
Soviet leader had commented favorably on a message of Pope John in support
of the proposals of the neutral nations. The concern of the Pope for peace, said
Krushchev, was proof that he was taking into consideration "the feelings of
millions of Catholics all over the world . . . His appeal is a good omen . . . As a
Communist and atheist, I don't believe in Divine Providence. But because we
always were and are for a peaceful solution of the conflicts, we can't but
approve an appeal to negotiate in the interests of peace from wherever it
comes. And now I am asking myself if fervent Catholics such as John Kennedy,
Konrad Adenauer and others are going to understand the warning of the
Pope."(6)
It took a few days for Metropolitan Nikodim to understand the warning of
Krushchev, because during the pan-orthodox Conference of Rhodes (September
24 - October 1) he was still attacking the Vatican.(7) But, especially after
Krushchev had sent a greetings telegram to the Pope on November 23 for his
80th birthday, it was clear that the Moscow Patriarchate had to drop its
political and ecclesiastical objection to the Council. Now its role was not
to oppose, but to influence the Council through the presence of its
observers in Rome. The only question to be solved was a tactical one: how to
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retract the categorical "non possumus" and obey the orders of an atheist boss
without losing face.
The Vatican had decided to invite the observers of the Orthodox Churches
through the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, who
personally was willing to accept the invitation, but preferred to act in solidarity
with the other sister Churches. This way the Patriarch of Constantinople, who is
"primus inter pares", could avoid the accusation of taking unilateral decisions
and the Vatican could be spared the embarrassment of direct refusals. The
Moscow Patriarchate took advantage of this situation to play its diplomatic
game. In international gatherings officials of the Russian Orthodox Church
started to spread the rumor that if directly invited, they could reconsider their
attitude. Archbishop Nikodim, in New Delhi, asked whether or not Moscow would
send observers to Rome, replied: "We are almost ashamed at being unable to
answer. But how can we reply, when we have not yet been invited?"(8) Later, in
August 1962, he met in Paris Msgr. Jan Willebrands, then secretary of the
Roman Secretariat for Christian Unity, and let him understand that if he would
make a personal visit to Moscow, the question of the observers could be settled.
The Roman official spent five days from September 27 to October 2 in Moscow.
On the evening of the inauguration of the Council (October 11) two Russian
observers arrived in Rome. Meanwhile, on the night before, Patriarch
Athenagoras had telegraphed to Rome that the heads of the Orthodox
Churches, including the Patriarch of Moscow, had decided not to send observers.
The diplomatic maneuvers had worked successfully. The Russian representatives
were the only Orthodox observers present in Rome at the opening of the Second
Vatican Council. The prestige of Rome and the face of Moscow were saved.(9)
Archbishop Yakovos of New York indignantly commented that the MoscowVatican dealing had been "apparently aimed at disrupting Orthodox unity and
undermining the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate."(10) The MoscowConstantinople rivalry as well as the dependence of the Russian Church upon
the Soviet government were facts well known to the Vatican, but interests of
diplomacy, even of Vatican diplomacy, cannot be stopped by considerations of
human decency. In the pre-Vatican Council II days the question of Vatican
prestige was of singular importance to the organizers of the Council. In the
context of the ecumenical feelers being extended by Vatican officials to the
Orthodox world, it would be embarrassing were the Council to open with no
Orthodox observers. The readiness of the Moscow Patriarchate to send
observers could not be disregarded, even if this Church lacked two important
qualities (freedom of speech and action and solidarity with the other Orthodox
Churches) and was about to demand a high price for its "ecumenical" services.
No one knows precisely the terms of the accord by which the Moscow
Patriarchate agreed to send observers to Vatican II. On Moscow's part there
was profound concern to scuttle any attempt to issue a condemnation
of Communism by the Council. Msgr. Willebrands was in a position to give
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assurances that the Council "would not undertake anti-Communist

polemics''(11) because, as Pope John had already declared, the Council was
expected to be a pastoral one. On the other hand the presence of the Russian
observers in Rome would be the best guarantee that the bishops would refrain
from taking any harsh attitude. When the Ukrainian Catholic bishops protested
against the presence of the observers from Moscow, the Secretariat for
Christian Unity immediately reprimanded them and defended its "guests".(12)
Nevertheless, as can be gathered from the reading of the accounts and articles
on the Council published by the journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, the
representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church abstained from any favorable
declaration almost until the end, fearing that the question of Communism would
spoil everything. On several occasions the Russian prelates had made it
clear that silence on the question of Communism was a conditio sino
qua non for their continued presence in Rome. As Father Georges Dejaifve,
S.J., wrote about the stand taken by the representatives of the Moscow
Patriarchate at the Third Pan-Orthodox Conference in Rhodes (November 1-15,
1964): "The Russian Church showed that it was impossible to speak of a
dialogue with the Church of Rome before the closing of the Council . . . because
in the eyes of public opinion a condemnation of atheism would be equal to a
condemnation of Communism and consequently of the Soviet regime." (13)
That Father Dejaifve was not reporting mere rumors appears also from what the
well-known anti-religious writer N. Sheinman wrote during the Vatican Council:
"In the same Roman Curia and in the Council the bitter fight on whether to go
along the line of John XXIII or to go back to Pius XII's course is not yet
concluded. This was shown also during the second session of the Vatican
Council. On the eve of the closing of the session, on December 3, 1963, more
than 200 bishops from 46 countries, sent to the Vatican Secretariat of State the
proposal of a declaration 'on Communism' to be discussed the following session.
Thus, these bishops and their supporters are pushing the Council toward an
anti-Communist 'crusade'." (14)
The "reserves" of the Russian Orthodox Church regarding the Vatican Council II
were finally lifted toward the end of the same when the request of more than
300 bishops to discuss Communism was inexplicably blocked and dropped.(15)
Now the "dialogue" was possible, but it became mostly a useless exercise in
rhetorical speeches, a diplomatic exchange of official delegations without the
necessary contacts with the base. Since 1967 four major "theological
conversations" took place among representatives of the Russian and Roman
Churches.
(1.) L. N. Velikovich, Krzis sovremennogo Katolitsizma pp. 21-42. (2.) La Civilta
Cattolica, January 28, 1961, pp. 238-252. (3.) Zhurnal Moskovshoi Patriarkhii,
1961, No. 6, pp. 76-80. (4.) Ibid., 1961, No. 5, p. 73. (5.) And on Earth Peace,
pp. 63-67. (6.) Izvestiia September 21, 1961. (7.) La Croix (Paris), October 21,
1961. (8.) Informations Catholiques Internationales (Paris), January 1, 1962.
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(9.) Christ und Welt, October 19, 1962. (10.) America (N.Y.), November 11,
1962, p. 1080. (ll.) R. B. Kaiser, Pope, Council and World, p. 100. (12.) X.
Rynne, Letters from Vatican City, p. 80. (13.) La Civilta Cattolica, 1964, vol. IV,
pp. 461-462. (14 .) M. M. Sheinman Sovremennyikleri kalizm, p. 80. (15.)G. F.
Svidercoschi. Storia del Concilio. pp. 601-607.

THE POPE'S HANDS ARE TIED . . .

Is This What Prevents Him from Making the Consecration?
Reporting a meeting of several Cardinals in early spring 1981, Father Malachi
Martin tells us in his book The Jesuits (on pages 85-86) that the VaticanMoscow Agreement was reaffirmed in the early days of the Pontificate of Pope
John Paul II. We quote here the appropriate passage where Stato (as the author
refers to the Secretary of State who is Cardinal Casaroli) openly refers to this
historic and sad event.
"Religiosi's challenge to His Holiness to let the meeting go off-track, veer away
from the matter of the Jesuit problem, had been surgically amputated.
"With almost no gap in the discussion, however, Stato* took up the
cudgels. His approach was much more indirect than Religiosi's had
been. Stato* reminded his Venerable Colleagues that he had been with
the present Holy Father at His Holiness's two meetings with the Soviet
negotiator, Anatoly Adamshin, the most recent of which had been
earlier this very year of 1981. His Holiness had given the Soviets a
guarantee that no word or action, either by His Holiness or the Polish
Hierarchy or Solidarity's leaders, would violate the Moscow-Vatican
Pact of 1962.**
"Stato* did not need to explain to his listeners that in the late spring of 1962, a
certain Eugene Cardinal Tisserant had been dispatched by Pope John XXIII to
meet with a Russian prelate, one Metropolitan Nikodim, representing the Soviet
Politburo of Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Pope John ardently desired to know if
the Soviet Government would allow two members of the Russian Orthodox
Church to attend the Second Vatican Council set to open the following October.
The meeting between Tisserant and Nikodim took place in the official residence
of Paul Joseph Schmitt, then the bishop of Metz, France. There, Nikodim gave
the Soviet answer. His government would agree, provided the Pope would
guarantee two things: that his forthcoming Council would issue no
condemnation of Soviet Communism or of Marxism, and that the Holy See
would make it a rule for the future to abstain from all such official
condemnation.
"Nikodim got his guarantees. Matters were orchestrated after that for Pope John
by Jesuit Cardinal Augustine Bea until the final agreement was concluded in
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Moscow, and was carried out in Rome, in that Vatican Council as well as in the
policies of the Holy See for nearly two decades since.
"Stato* said he had but two questions to ask. The Vatican Council and two
Popes since John XXIII had respected this guarantee. Would His Holiness also
respect the guarantee? And would his Polish Hierarchy and Solidarity's leaders
respect it?
"The question Stato* did not ask was so clear to everyone by now that he did
not need to put it into words: How could John Paul II indict the Jesuits for their
support of Marxist thinkers and Communist guerillas in Latin America without
explicitly condemning Soviet Marxism and its Communist surrogates? Without,
in other words, violating not only the Metz Pact, but his own assurance to
Adamshin that "Metz," as the little-known agreement was generally referred to,
would be respected during his pontificate?
"Stato's* message, then, was clear. He knew as well as anyone that Jesuit
wanderlust from Catholic teaching could be reproved in terms that would violate
no pact or agreement. But he would protect the Jesuits. Would His Holiness
fight about it? Or compromise?
*As explained above, Stato is Cardinal Casaroli.

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