✣ Pope and patriarch to meet for first time
What happened? The Vatican announced that the Pope would meet Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill, in Cuba. The two are due to arrive today at Havana’s José Marti International airport and plan to sign a joint declaration, according to Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi. The meeting, which will take place while the Holy Father is on his way to Mexico, “will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches”, said a joint statement. What the British media are saying David Willey, the BBC’s Rome correspondent, noted that “previous attempts by Francis’s predecessors to arrange a get-together in eastern Europe – or even in Cyprus – foundered because the Russians have always suspected that it is Rome’s secret intention to poach converts from inside traditionally Orthodox lands”. He said that the persecution of Christians had finally “pushed the leaders to meet”. While the Erasmus column in the Economist said the meeting was “spectacular”, it noted a meeting between Pope John Paul I and Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad – “close to being the de facto Russian Orthodox leader” – in 1978. The metropolitan had a fatal heart attack during the course of the meeting and John Paul I died three weeks later. What the Vaticanisti are saying The meeting was an “ecumenical earthquake”, according to Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia, while John Allen of Cruxnow.com speculated on the meeting’s timings. He wrote: “In light of a pan-Orthodox council scheduled for Crete in June, the first such gathering of leaders of all the Orthodox churches in 1,000 years, Moscow probably feels under pressure to reassert its relevance and leadership, and a high-profile summit with the Pope is a terrific way of doing so. Adding to that is the growing normalisation of relations between Rome and Moscow at lower levels. For instance, at each of the recent Vatican Synods of Bishops, a guest from the Moscow Patriarchate was invited to speak and given a major platform.”
