In a historic move, Pope Francis will meet the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, Feb. 12 in Cuba as the pontiff is on his way to Mexico.
Advertisement
Francis will stop in Cuba on the way to Mexico and meet with Kirill on February 12 at the Havana airport, according to the statement.
The meeting is due to take place at Havana airport, where the two leaders will sign a joint declaration.
The patriarch is expected to visit Cuba, Paraguay and Brazil, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion, the head of the synodal department of external church relations, said at a press conference in Moscow on February 5.
Eastern and Western Christianity were split in two churches almost 1,000 years ago, in 1054.
Since their breakup, the churches have grown even further apart and are divided on everything from whether priests should marry to whether the pope should retain the power of command.
“The poor man has so many issues there that the meeting with the pope has been put on the back burner”, the pope said, referring to Kirill and the Ukraine situation.
“In conditions of Western sanctions, the meeting of the two church leaders is a confirmation of the Christian civilisational role of Russia”, Avdeyev said.
But the two Churches have been increasingly seeking to launch joint initiatives on areas of concern to them since the papacy of Benedict VXI, such as growing secularism in Europe.
The signing, Lombardi said, will signify “a dialogue that can overcome previous obstacles”. Father Gorbunov said the planned meeting showed that both Churches are putting aside their long-standing differences and disagreements in order to provide a united front and “a common witness” to respond to the suffering and persecution of Christians in today’s world.
The Russian Orthodox Church said the “persecution of Christians” could function as the principal topic of the assembly.
The meeting will pave the way for direct ties between the Catholic and Russian Church, which is the largest in the Orthodoxy.
In 2001, Pope John Paul II made a landmark trip to mostly Orthodox Greece and issued an apology for the ravages of the Fourth Crusade, which in the early 13th century sacked Constantinople, now Istanbul, the seat of the Eastern church.
A meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch has been on the cards for some time although it has always been envisaged that such an encounter needed to take place on neutral territory.
Russian Orthodox officials have accused Catholics in Ukraine, who use Eastern forms of worship but are loyal to Rome, of both evangelism and fomenting Ukrainian nationalism.
Under Francis, the Vatican has encouraged continuing ecumenical ties with the Orthodox as well as other Christian denominations.
The Vatican has been careful with its comments against Russia’s actions in Ukraine, including its annexation of Ukraine in 2014, but has indirectly criticized Moscow and others over failures to end Syria’s civil war.
Kirill was the church’s foreign policy chief before he became patriarch in 2009 and is well known in Vatican circles.
The rift between the churches goes far beyond a battle for converts in Russian Federation.
Advertisement
His support for President Vladimir Putin and his government is also more pronounced than that of his predecessor, who tried to keep a distance from the Kremlin.
