When Russian Orthodox Monks Sang "Many Years" to the Pope!

Russian Greek-Catholic Bishop Andrei Katkov in front of the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Leningrad, 1969.


In 1969, an event of extraordinary character that has unfortunately been lost to the annals of obscure Byzantine Catholic history occurred. Bishop Andrei V. Katkov (1916-1995), who as far as I can tell was the last bishop of the Russian Greek-Catholic Church, openly visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of the Moscow Patriarchate. Given that, at the time, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church was suppressed and only Roman Catholic parishes were permitted to operate in the USSR, this makes the visit all the more interesting.

Bishop Andrei Katkov (born Apollo Vladimirovich Katkov in 1916 in Irkutsk), was a Russian who, from what I can tell, was born into a family of Catholic converts. In 1920, like many white Russian emigres, his family moved to Harbin (China), which was one of the main centres of Russian Byzantine Catholicism. He studied in Rome and was ordained in 1944 as a hieromonk. From 1945-1950, he cared for Russian Catholics in England. In 1950, he moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he cared for Russian Greek Catholics until Pope John XXIII appointed him as a bishop in 1958. Because the Russian Greek-Catholic Church lacked a diocesan structure, and had been practically destroyed in the early years of Soviet rule, he was appointed Titular Bishop of Nauplia. He was appointed Exarch of Russian Greek Catholics, and became de facto leader of the Russian Greek-Catholic Church in the diaspora in the 1960s.

Visit to the USSR

In August 1969, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) - who died in 1978 of a heart attack in the arms of Pope John Paul I on an ecumenical visit to Rome - invited Bishop Katkov to visit the Soviet Union on behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow and All Russia. The 92 year old Patriarch, who had been appointed a bishop by Tsar Nicholas II in 1913, actually gifted him a rosary and his panagia! Bishop Katkov was received by the elderly Patriarch at his summer residence in Odessa.

Bishop Katkov flew first to Moscow, then to Leningrad. He also visited Odessa in the Ukrainian SSR. He was welcomed to various Russian Orthodox parishes across the USSR, and was received in the rank of bishop and exchanged the fraternal kiss with his Orthodox brother bishops at the Divine Liturgy. During his visit to Omsk, he was welcomed by Bishop Nikolay (Kutepov). After this trip to Omsk, he took the train to his hometown of Irkutsk, which he saw for the first time since he was a small boy.


At the Pochaev Lavra, one of the five most important monasteries in the Russian Orthodox Church, a divine service was held to mark Bishop Katkov’s presence, and the Orthodox monks sang “Many years” to Pope Paul VI! Such a thing would be unthinkable now. It is sadly the case that the best period of relations between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches was the 1960s and 1970s - in the 1960s, by decree of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, Catholics were even admitted to Holy Communion on condition of not being able to access a Catholic church (of which there were many in the western part of the USSR but very few in Russia herself).

This visit was the first and only time a Greek-Catholic bishop was welcomed in Soviet Russia with full honours and an official reception from the Russian Orthodox Church.

The trip having been a success, in September 1969, Metropolitan Nikodim, accompanied by his young secretary Fr Kirill Gundayev, went on the first official Russian Orthodox pilgrimage to Rome. Metropolitan Nikodim presented, on behalf of Patriarch Alexy I, the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st degree, to Cardinals Eugene Tisserand and Johannes Willebrands; Cardinal Maximilian von Fürstenberg was given a panagia.

The Pontifical Russian College in Rome was presented with an Icon of Our Lady of Kazan by Metropolitan Nikodim, and Metropolitan Nikodim and Fr Kirill Gundayev co-served the Divine Liturgy at the chapel. I note that Fr Kirill is now in the position of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia himself. What is fascinating is that according to the records of those who remembered this liturgy celebrated by Metropolitan Nikodim and Fr Gundayev, Catholics were permitted to partake of Holy Communion and many in attendance did come forward to receive communion from the hands of Metropolitan Nikodim.

Metropolitan Nikodim considered the trip a success. Shortly afterwards, Metropolitan Alexy (future Patriarch of Moscow: 1990-2008) visited Rome and compiled a report for the Council of Religious Affairs of the USSR on the status of Russian Catholicism, which was found in the USSR state archives in the 1990s.

The good relations engendered by the visit of Bishop Katkov to Russia and the visit of Metropolitan Nikodim to Rome meant that, when in 1971 the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church was held outside Moscow, the Catholic Church was invited to send an observer. That Council, which had the primary purpose of electing a new Patriarch after the death of Alexy I in 1970 (1970 was the centennial year of Lenin’s birth, so Soviet authorities made the Russian Church postpone the election of the new Patriarch until 1971), also involved the lifting of the Nikon-era anathemas on the Old Believers. Cardinal Willebrands attended and venerated the relics of St Sergius of Radonezh, at the hands of the newly elected Patriarch Pimen.




Cardinal Willebrands greeting the about to be elected Patriarch Pimen of Moscow at the 1971 Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church held at Zagorsk, near Moscow.

Bishop Katkov himself largely retired in 1977 due to ill health, and died in Rome in 1995.