Metropolitan Hilarion urges Vatican to resolve dispute with Ukrainian Catholics

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan (Archbishop) Hilarion, urged the Vatican to show "some signs" of readiness to resolve a decades-long conflict between Orthodox and Catholics in Ukraine that has been blocking a meeting of the two world religious leaders.

The biggest bone of contention concerns the fate of many church properties that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics, who worship in an Orthodox rite but owe their allegiance to Rome.

Stalin gave the property to the Russian Orthodox Church but after the fall of communism, the Eastern Rite Catholics took back more than 500 churches, mostly in Western Ukraine.

"Not very much was done or is being done in order to solve this problem," said Hilarion, who is head of the external relations department of the 165-million-member Russian Orthodox Church and one of the closest aides to Patriarch Kirill.

Hilarion said the dispute remained the major problem in Catholic-Orthodox relations and the main obstacle to a meeting.

"As soon as we have this understanding, we will be ready to begin preparations for such a meeting," he said.