It will be the first ever meeting between a pope and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which split from the Catholic Church in 1054.
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Pope Francis headed to Cuba on Friday looking to heal a 1,000-year-old rift in Christianity before embarking on a tour of Mexico dominated by modern day problems of drug-related violence and migration. It will be the first time a pope has met a Russian patriarch and shows a significant warming of relations between the two churches since they split nearly 1,000 years ago. Pope Francis arrives Friday afternoon for the meeting, which will take place at José Martí International Airport, before he continues on to Mexico.
But the Russian Orthodox Church, the second-largest single Christian denomination after Catholicism, has resisted overtures from several consecutive popes, and for that reason today’s meeting holds significance. Bitterness ran deep enough that the patriarch refused to meet in Europe, and other countries in Latin America were too overwhelmingly Catholic.
Now the pope is seeking to fix a much longer rupture.
Struggling against history: Any lasting peace between the Roman and Russian churches faces a deep-seated historical barrier in Moscow’s objections to Catholic activities on what it considers its church domain, especially in neighboring Ukraine, while Catholics see past Russian Orthodox leaders as complicit in 20th century persecutions.
A close ally of President Vladimir Putin, the patriarch has fervently backed Moscow’s military action overseas.
The metropolitan said it was necessary to sweep differences aside, although added there was a “never-healing” wound in alleged “anti-Russian” slogans attributed to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church. I don’t think he grasps the danger of the border we are now leaving open with Mexico.
But that same slight majority (again 54%) also says that Trump, whose signature issue is buttressing the border between the United States and Mexico, would make a good or great president, a Pew poll found.
“This will be a long and hard journey”, the patriarch said in Moscow before leaving.
Francis will end his trip in the violent northern city of Ciudad Juarez, where he will pray at the border for all who have died trying to cross into the USA – a prayer he hopes will resonate north of the border.
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The pope was scheduled to remain in Cuba for three and a half hours before continuing on to Mexico for a five-day visit.
