Last August, the new Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, gave an interview about his time as nuncio in Russia, in which he strongly defended the Russian Orthodox church against an anti-clerical backlash caused by the Orthodox fight against secularism and against its so far remarkably successful determination to regain its place in Russian society. This gave me some hope for the effectiveness of his mission here. This (if I may be forgiven for quoting myself) is what I said on his appointment to London: