In 2004 the Church of the Great Martyr Saint Catherine became the first Russian Orthodox church built in the holy city since 1054, when the churches split in an event known as “The Great Schism.” The 950 years in between saw less than accommodating stances between the two factions of Christian faith, though things have been warming up for some time now.
In the late 19th century, plans were made to build an Orthodox church in Rome, but was delayed over a century by two world wars and a communist government in Italy. Finally, approval was granted by the city in 2001 to build the church on the grounds of the Russian embassy to the Vatican. The church was given a blessing by Patriarch Alexy II. [...]
The rift between the two faiths is not as great as it used to be. Important representatives of both faiths attended the opening ceremony in 2004 and the consecration in 2009. Catholic Romans attend the liturgies at St. Catherine given in Italian, and though there are only a few hundred of them, the Russian Orthodoxes disperse to the many Catholic churches in Rome in a show of reaching a hand across the aisle.
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