Pope departs for Cuba, first stop before Mexico

The discussion comes following centuries of frosty relations between the two branches of Christianity.

Relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Kiev Patriarchate have also frayed.

The first, historic meeting between a Pope and a Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church does not come from nowhere.

Imperial and Soviet Russia continually accused the Catholic Church of trying to infiltrate its spheres of influence. The first salvos were fired as the Soviet Union imploded and have kept up at a less urgent pace since. The very fact of the meeting between Francis and Kirill involves the latter’s recognition of the fact that Ukrainian Catholics and other Eastern Catholics will not simply disappear.

Their meeting will take place in Cuba, where the Pope will make a stop on his way to Mexico, and where the Patriarch will be on an official visit.

However, the two churches have been communicating regularly on a lower level.

The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have been at odds for over 1,000 years. He personally met with both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The meeting is a new and significant step towards the improvement of religious links and will have a positive impact on only on relations between the Catholic and the Orthodox churches, but also will favor peace in the world. “I think Putin agrees with the meeting, but I can’t say more”, he said.

But while Francis’ personal qualities inspire trust in the main body of Russian Orthodoxy, the strong conservative faction doesn’t share Kirill’s optimism.

Russia’s ambassador to the Vatican, Alexander Avdeyev, said the two Churches organized the meeting but that it could “help politicians and diplomats” with policy decisions.

In his sermon at a liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica last April held days before the April 24 commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, Pope Francis described the Ottoman-era mass killings and deportations of the Armenian people “the first genocide of the 20th century”.

Upon his arrival, the Patriarch addressed the citizens of Cuba, sending greetings from “all the people of historical Rus'”.

At the end of the meeting they’re set to sign a joint declaration, the text of which have not yet been released. Secondly, Francis has a few times found himself on the same diplomatic page as Russian Federation on the global stage.

During the Ukrainian conflict, the issue of the Ukrainian Church became a political issue, given that the Russian Orthodox Church has always sided with the Russian administration. “I do not see anything bad in this desire, but due to the fact that Serbia has a large number of refugees from Croatia who still bear the wounds of trauma and persecution, and other consequences of that persecution, perhaps the time has not yet come for the pope’s visit to take place”, Irinej told Beta agency in an interview during his visit to Canada.

“It’s a good sign, but it’s obvious that the Russian state is seeking lines of communication with the West, and the patriarch is a courier”, Aleksei Venediktov, the editor in chief of Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy, said on the air on February 6.

But a meeting between Kirill and Francis would probably not have occurred without the Kremlin’s blessing. It is far from both religious centers, and also far from the continent where Christians were divided nearly a thousand years ago. It used to be the “Mother Church” for the metropolitans of Kiev, and could claim the same privilege again, however, this remains an improbable scenario.