Pope Francis will meet the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill for first time for an historic meeting in Cuba, the Vatican has said. Pope Francis will fly to Cuba before traveling on to Mexico for a six-day tour of the country.
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The meeting is due to take place at Havana airport, where the two leaders will sign a joint declaration. “It is an event of extraordinary importance”, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombarid said February 5. He played a key role in the recent thawing of relations between the United States and Cuba, which reestablished diplomatic ties past year. “In the present tragic situation, it is necessary to put aside internal disagreements and unite efforts for saving Christianity in the regions where it is subjected to the most severe persecution”.
For the better part of a quarter-century, rumors of such a meeting would periodically erupt – the pope and patriarch would meet in Vienna, for instance, or in Crete, or in some other neutral site.
Given that the Russian Orthodox Church enjoys an extremely close relationship with the Russian government, it’s unlikely Kirill would have agreed to the meeting with Francis without at least a tacit green light from Putin.
The first major breakthrough came in 1964 when Pope Paul VI met in Jerusalem with Patriarch Athenagoras in the first encounter between a pope and Orthodox patriarch in more than 500 years. That alone raised eyebrows, as Russian isn’t one of the Vatican’s official languages, and led to questions about just how long the Vatican knew about this meeting, as they would have needed advance notice to prepare Russian text.
Jesuit Fr. David Nazar, rector of Rome’s Pontifical Oriental Institute and a Ukrainian Catholic from Canada, told Catholic News Service that news of the Francis-Kirill meeting is “big news in the Year of Mercy”. The choice to meet in Cuba is also seen as anything but chance.
If the two Churches are finally close enough on theological issues, the differences are still numerous and profound: they always focus on the primacy of the pope, but also on the Ukrainian conflict, which occur again the divisions between Greek Catholics attached Rome and Orthodox linked to Moscow.
There are several Russian Orthodox churches in Florida, including St. Vladimir and the Apostolic Mission of Christ in Miami and St. Matrona in Hallandale Beach.
“It’s a place that positioned itself well for the circumstances”, Lombardi said. The Russian-speaking community of Cuba, which has 15,000 members, “is looking forward to the patriarch’s visit”, Metropolitan Hilarion said.
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About 75% of Russia’s 144 million citizens call themselves Russian Orthodox, according to the latest polls, although only a fraction of them say they are observant. “He wanted to go to Moscow and meet the Patriarch of Moscow”.
