Vatican issues clarification on what the Pope's words about the glorification of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great meant

The Holy See has issued a special clarification of Pope Francis' speech at the All-Russian Meeting of Catholic Youth last week, which drew sharp criticism in Ukraine.

Francis spoke via video link at the event, which took place at St. Catherine's Catholic Basilica in St. Petersburg on August 25. In particular, the Pope said:

"Never forget your heritage. You are the descendants of a great Russia: a great Russia of saints, of rulers, of the great Russia of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, of that empire – a great, enlightened, great culture and great humanity. Never give up this heritage. You are the descendants of the great mother Russia, so move forward with it. And thank you – thank you for your way of being, for your way of being Russian."

"The Pope intended to encourage young people to preserve and promote all that is positive in the great Russian cultural and spiritual heritage, and certainly not to glorify imperialist logic and governmental figures mentioned as landmarks of historical periods," the Vatican statement said.

A spokesman for the Russian president also commented on the Pope's words.

"The pontiff knows Russian history, and this is very good. It is really deep, it has deep roots," Peskov said. – "This heritage needs to be constantly brought to our youth, to remind them of it.

The Russian rulers mentioned by the Pope went down in the history of Ukraine as tyrants and enslavers. Putin himself in June 2022 compared himself to Peter the Great, claiming that he also did not conquer but "returned" the territories that allegedly originally belonged to Russia through a long war (Peter waged war with Sweden for more than 20 years, some of the territories he conquered had never belonged to his state before, now they are part of Estonia and Latvia).

This statement by Putin is considered to be his first admission that the goals of his war are actually to increase territories – he did not say this on February 24.

Catherine forcibly conquered many of the lands that make up the territory of modern Ukraine, primarily Crimea and the Black Sea coast. In her time, these lands were also called Novorossiya, a word that has been used by Russian propaganda since 2014 to imply that Ukraine has no rights to these territories.

Background. In May, the Vatican announced its "secret" peacekeeping mission.