MOSCOW. Oct 27 (Interfax) - The Moscow Patriarchate believes the Catholic community in Russia is a minority oriented towards a foreign culture, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church said, commenting on a statement by Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states. The Catholic leader said earlier that Catholics should be represented at the Russian Inter-Religious Council and the Public Council.

"In the Russian Inter-Religious council, each religion is so far represented by the largest communities. In particular, Islam is represented by traditional Sunnites, since there are not too many Shiites or, for instance, followers of Sufism in Russia," Vsevolod Chaplin told Interfax.

As regards the Public Council, this question should be addressed to secular authorities, he said.

At the same time, Chaplin pointed out that the Orthodox community, as well as other religious groups "based on foreign culture," is not much represented in Italian top state consultative bodies.

"Only the Catholic church is registered there as a church. It enjoys special privileges. In other words, there is unequal legal and public status, which is anyway quite normal for Italy as a Catholic country. In my view, the Vatican should treat as normally the Orthodox church special status in a number of countries.