Above: Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill celebrates Orthodox Christmas liturgy at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in 2011. (CNS photo/Denis Sinyakov, Reuters) (Jan. 7, 2011)
It will be the first-ever meeting of a pope and Moscow patriarch, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Feb. 5.
As Pope Francis travels to Cuba and as Patriarch Kirill makes an official visit to the island nation, the two will meet at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport and plan to sign a joint declaration, Father Lombardi said.
The meeting “will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches,” said a joint declaration on the meeting.
Holding a simple meeting with a Moscow patriarch, spiritual leader of the world’s largest Orthodox church, was a failed dream of St. John Paul II and an opportunity that escaped retired Pope Benedict XVI as well.
Repeatedly after the Soviet bloc began dissolving in 1989 and the once-repressed Eastern Catholic churches began functionally publicly again, Russian Orthodox leaders insisted there could be no meeting between a pope and a patriarch as long as Catholics were “proselytizing” in what the Orthodox considered their territory.
The Vatican insisted the Catholic Church rejects proselytism, which it defines as actively seeking converts from another Christian community, including through pressure or offering enticements. The Russian Orthodox had insisted such types of proselytism occurred in both Russia and Ukraine, although the Vatican said that when asked, the Orthodox provided no proof.
St. John Paul re-established the Latin-rite Catholic hierarchy of Russia in 2002, which led to the Russian Orthodox withdrawing from dialogue with the Vatican for several years. Even as tensions over the Catholic presence in Russia waned, the Russian Orthodox insisted a bigger example of proselytism was the loss of its churches in the newly independent Ukraine.
The Vatican recognized there were some instances of excessive zeal early on, but rejected the use of the term “proselytism” as a blanket description for the re-establishment of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Catholic Church was outlawed by the Soviet government in the 1940s and its property was confiscated by the government, which in turn gave some churches to the Russian Orthodox. Byzantine-rite Catholics who once could worship only in a Russian Orthodox church, returned to Catholic services and sought the return of church property.
Jesuit Father David Nazar, rector of Rome’s Pontifical Oriental Institute and a Ukrainian Catholic from Canada, told Catholic News Service, “If this were to take place, it would be big news in the Year of Mercy. To make a step in this direction is beautiful, but also irreversible.”
Especially for Catholics in Russia and Ukraine, he said, relations with the Russian Orthodox are complicated, including because of the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government, which annexed the Crimea and is supporting fighting in Eastern Ukraine.
Father Nazar described his reaction to the news as “cautiously optimistic” and said he hoped it would mark “a new beginning” in Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations.