Pope Francis is to meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on February 12 in Cuba in what is an historic first meeting between leaders of their two churches.
The meeting, which is expected to take two hours, will take place when the Pope is en route to Mexico, the Vatican announced.
A statement from the Vatican and the Moscow patriarchate noted that the meeting will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches.
According to a Reuters report, Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church said the meeting is taking place because of the need for a joint response to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
Metropolitan Hilarion said that long-standing differences between the two churches remain, most notably a row over the status of the Uniate Church, in Ukraine.
But he said these differences were being put aside so that Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis could come together on the issue of persecution of Christians.
“The situation shaping up today in the Middle East, in North and Central Africa, and in some other regions where extremists are carrying out a genuine genocide of the Christian population, demands urgent measures and an even closer cooperation between the Christian churches,” Hilarion said.
“We need to put aside internal disagreements at this tragic time and join efforts to save Christians in the regions where they are subject to the most atrocious persecution.”
Hilarion said the first-ever meeting between the heads of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches would not take place in Europe because Patriarch Kirill had objected to such a venue from the very beginning.
“Because it is namely Europe with which this tragic history of divisions and conflicts among Christians is linked,” Hilarion said.
The meeting between the Pope and Patriarch Kirill will come only months before the expected opening in June of the first synod meeting of the various Orthodox churches in more than a thousand years.
This synod will be in Crete.
Sources
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News category: World.
