Pope, Patriarch bridge “Great Schism”

Havana: Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill have called for restoration of unity between the two Churches at historic talks in Cuba.

The February 12 meeting was the first between a Pope and a Russian Church head since the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity split in the 11th Century.

At a news conference after the meeting, Patriarch Kirill said the discussions were “open” and “brotherly,” while Pope Francis described them as “very sincere.”

“We hope our meeting contributes to the re-establishment of this unity wished for by God,” their joint declaration said.

The document called on the world community to defend Christians, saying that “in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated.”

“Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed.”

Russian state TV described the talks between the two men as the “meeting of the millennium.”

Patriarch Kirill has headed the Russian Orthodox Church since February 2009, while Pope Francis took up his role in March 2013.

“Finally!,” Pope Francis exclaimed as he hugged Patriarch Kirill in the small, wood-paneled VIP room of Havana’s airport, where the three-hour encounter took place.

“We are brothers,” the Pope added.

Patriarch Kirill agreed and said, “Now things are easier.” The two Church leaders exchanged three kisses on the cheek. “This is the will of God,” the Pope further said.

The meeting and signing of a joint declaration was decades in the making and cemented Francis’ reputation as a risk-taking statesman who values dialogue, bridge-building and rapprochement at almost any cost.

The Pope had brief talks in Cuba before heading off on a five-day visit to Mexico, where he was scheduled to bring a message of solidarity with the victims of drug violence, human trafficking and discrimination to some of that country’s most violent and poverty-stricken regions.

Many have hailed the historic meeting of the two Church leaders as an important ecumenical breakthrough. However, some criticized the Pope for essentially allowing himself to be used by a Russia eager to assert itself among Orthodox Christians and on the world stage at a time when the country is increasingly isolated from the West.

The joint declaration touched on a shared concern between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches: the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria who are being killed and driven from their homes by the Islamic State group.

The declaration was signed in Cuba, a Catholic country familiar to Latin America’s first pope, but equally familiar to the Russian Church given its anti-American and Soviet legacy. It is also far removed from the Catholic-Orthodox turf battles in Europe.

The Vatican hopes the meeting will improve relations with other Orthodox churches and spur progress in dialogue over theological differences that have divided East from West ever since the Great Schism of 1054 that split Christianity.

But Orthodox observers say Patriarch Kirill’s willingness to finally meet with a pope has less to do with any new ecumenical impulse than grandstanding within the West and the Orthodox Church at a time when Russia is increasingly under fire from the West over its military actions in Syria and Ukraine.

Patriarch Kirill, a spiritual adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, leads the most powerful of the 14 independent Orthodox churches that will meet this summer in Greece in the first such pan-Orthodox synod in centuries.

The Russian Church has long sought greater influence over the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul.

Catholic and Orthodox split in 1054 and have remained estranged over a host of issues, including the primacy of the pope and, more recently, Russian Orthodox accusations that the Catholic Church was poaching converts in former Soviet lands. Those tensions have prevented previous popes from meeting with the Russian patriarch. The Vatican has insisted that it was merely ministering to tiny Catholic communities.

The most vexing issue in recent times centers on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the country’s second-largest, which follows Eastern Church rites but answers to the Holy See. The Russian Orthodox Church has considered western Ukraine its traditional territory and has resented papal influence there.

Rev. Stefano Caprio, one of the first priests who arrived in Russia in 1989 to minister to the Catholic community and now is a professor of Russian history and culture at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, says a papal trip to Russia is still a long-sought dream.
The Catholic Church has more than a billion members worldwide, while the Russian Orthodox Church numbers about 165 million.

The Russian Church is the largest and most powerful in the Orthodox faith, which is made up of a number of separate churches.

More than 300,000 people welcomed Pope when he arrived in Mexico, which has the world’s second largest Catholic population.

The Pope was greeted at the airport by President Enrique Pena Nieto.