Regarding: ""We want to be more actively involved in the life of society here, and we count on Russia's church and government being more attentive in future to Catholic needs.""
- Kirill is pining for a patron-client relationship were the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox gets to decide and control the 'Patriarch of the West' and all those who are in union and / or communion with him.
- That ArchbBenedictxvi threw off the office of Patriarch for the successor of Rome is probably signalling that Kirill gets to view his own governance status as superior, not equal. After all the orthodox know that 'cardinal' is an honour, not an office, and archbishop and bishop are but ecclesial offices that are subordinate by church governance to the office of patriarch.
- The lay catholics in russia and ukraine need to practice their own realpolitik and start a gentle but persistent campaign to separate church from state, while responding to patriarch of all russia as one christian equal to another.