Pope Francis Will Become First Ever Pope To Meet A Russian Orthodox Patriarch

Pope Francis will become the Roman Catholic pope in history to meet a Russian Orthodox patriarch in what could be a historic step towards healing the 1,000years old rift between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity.

The Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate announced that the pontiff will visit Cuba on his way to Mexico on February 12 to hold talks with Patriarch Kirill. The Pope said the leaders would hold several hours of private talks at Havana airport, deliver public speeches and sign a joint statement. Modern popes have met in the past with the Istanbul-based ecumenical patriarchs, the spiritual leaders of Eastern Orthodoxy, which split with Rome in 1054. Those patriarchs play a largely symbolic role, while the rich Russian church wields real influence because it counts some 165 million of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians. The meeting was brokered by Cuban President Raul Castro, who hosted the pope in Cuba last year. 

Significantly, the Vatican helped arrange the recent rapprochement between Cuba and the United States. Such a meeting eluded his two immediate predecessors, Benedict and John Paul, who both tried but failed to reach agreement with Kirill and previous patriarchs to hold talks on the prospects for eventual Christian unity. Senior Orthodox cleric Metropolitan Hilarion said long-standing differences between the two churches would remain, most notably a row over the Eastern Rite church in Ukraine that is allied with Rome but he said they are being put aside so that Kirill and Pope Francis could work together against the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.  Both Pope Francis and Kirill have often decried their oppression and killing by Islamist militants.

The Russians had previously said outstanding differences had to be ironed out before any high-level meeting could be held. Hilarion said “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. 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”

Since becoming Pope, Francis has met twice with Patriarch Bartholomew, an Istanbul-based cleric who is considered the ecumenical head of the Eastern Orthodox church but does not have the same ecclesiastical clout as Russia's Kirill. The various Orthodox churches count some 260 to 300 million followers, with the Russian branch accounting for 165 million of them. In comparison, the Catholic church claims 1.2 billion members around the globe.

Pope Francis has also made a priority of improving relations between Roman Catholicism and other religions. He has defended Islam as a peaceful faith and the last month has seen him visit the main synagogue in Rome and announce plans to visit Sweden in October for a ecumenical service to mark next year's 500th anniversary of the Protestant reformation in Europe.