The Metropolitan Archbishop of Mocow, Paolo Pezzi, and the Secretary of the Synodal Theological Commission of the Patriarchate, Vladimir Shmalij, presented the Russian edition of Benedict XVI's encyclical "Spe Salvi" in Moscow's Library of the Spirit Cultural Center on March 25.

"We are very happy to have succeeded in using the presentation as an opportunity for Catholics and Orthodox to engage in dialogue about something as important as hope; a topic about which both Catholics and Orthodox have things to say."

"This struck me because we usually hope for something far off and unknown, but the Pope says that in hope itself we experience a sense of what will be. Right now, we can live in the divine presence of the One in Whom we place our hope."

"The suffering that the Orthodox Church underwent in the 20th Century is a real school of hope. I'm thinking about the people who were in concentration camps and knew that they would be shot the next day but never gave up their hope in Christ. This experience of faith and hope is an example for us."

"Spe Salvi," with more than two million copies sold already, will certainly find an audience in Russia.