Pope Francis will travel to Cuba later this month to meet Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first such encounter of its kind in history, the Vatican has announced. The pope will arrive in Havana on 12 February and be greeted by Cuba’s president, Raul Castro, before holding a private meeting with Kirill. 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 almost 1,000 years ago.
The unprecedented meeting will be the first between a Pope and a Russian Orthodox Patriarch in history. The encounter is expected to be a milestone in relations between the two churches and a significant step towards healing the 1,000-year-old rift between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity, which split in the Great Schism of 1054.
It will be seen as an important step in trying to heal the 1,000-year-old rift between Eastern and Western Christianity which split during the great schism of 1054. 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.
Patriarch Kirill is visiting Cuba at the invitation of President Raul Castro at the same time that the Pope is in Mexico (12-18 February). A statement from the Holy See said: “This meeting of the Primates of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, after a long preparation, will be the first in history and will mark an important stage in relations between the two Churches. The Holy See and the Moscow Patriarchate hope that it will also be a sign of hope for all people of good will.”
“This event has extraordinary importance in the path of ecumenical relations and dialogue among Christian confessions,” said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. The two churches split during the Great Schism of 1054 and have remained estranged over a host of issues, including the primacy of the pope and Russian Orthodox accusations that the Catholic Church is poaching converts in former Soviet lands.
In the joint statement, the two churches said the meeting “will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches. The Holy See and the Moscow Patriarchate hope that it will also be a sign of hope for all people of good will. They invite all Christians to pray fervently for God to bless this meeting, that it may bear good fruits.”
Metropolitan Illarion, foreign policy chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, told reporters on Friday that there are still core disagreements between the Holy See and the Russian Church, in particular on various Orthodox churches in western Ukraine. “Despite the existing ecclesiastical obstacles, a decision has been taken to hold a meeting between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis,” he said.
“The situation in the Middle East, in northern and central Africa and in other regions where extremists are perpetrating a genocide of Christians requires immediate action and an even closer cooperation between Christian churches,” Illarion said. “In this tragic situation, we need to put aside internal disagreements and pool efforts to save Christianity in the regions where it is subject to most severe persecution.”
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