Pope, Russian Orthodox patriarch meet in historic step

Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill was already expected to visit the Caribbean island and Pope Francis will stop there for the meeting on Friday on his way to an official visit to Mexico, said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

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.

“Taking a meeting once every thousand yearsI’d say that’s historic”, he said.

The announcement indicated that the Pope and the Patriarch will sign a joint declaration after their conversation. Kyril will be there for an official visit; Francis will fly off later that day for Mexico, where he will spend six days.

Russia’s Patriarch Kirill conducts a religious service.

The pace of reconciliation between Russian Federation, the largest country in the world, and the Vatican, the smallest, has been swift.

The Christian Church split into a Catholic and Orthodox Church in 1054 in what has become known as the East-West or Great Schism.

Once-frosty relations between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches, which have seesawed in recent years, were high on the agenda.

“He wanted to go to Moscow and meet the Patriarch of Moscow”.

“The current situation in the Middle East, North and Central Africa, and in several other regions where extremists are conducting a veritable genocide against Christian populations, requires urgent measures and real cooperation between Christian churches”, the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church said in a statement.

The statement continued: “They invite all Christians to pray fervently for God to bless this meeting, that it may bear good fruits”.

At Orthodox urging, the Catholic Church rejected “uniatism” – the uniting of a segment of an Orthodox Church with Rome – as a model for future Catholic-Orthodox union, but at the same time it affirmed the authenticity of Eastern Catholic churches formed in the past under such a model.

Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian, also noted that the Cuba meeting has meaningful geopolitical implications, because it comes at a moment when the United States and Europe are working to diplomatically isolate Russian Federation.

The Orthodox Church has close relations with the Kremlin and Kirill and Putin are said to have a close relationship.

But the Russian Orthodox Church has always kept its distance from Rome.

Among those present to greet the Pope when he lands will be Cuban president Raul Castro, Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, as well as the president of the Cuban bishops conference, Archbishop Dionisio García Ibáñez of Santiago de Cuba. Castro, in turn, helped broker the event.

Also, as previously reported, in October of this year, Francis will be promoting harmony between the Roman Catholic branch of the universal Church and the original Protestant denomination, the Lutherans.