ROME (CNS)—Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who was expected to fulfill Pope Francis on the Congress of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan, won’t attend the interreligious gathering in September, a senior Russian Orthodox bishop said.
Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, head of external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, confirmed to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti that the patriarch won’t attend the Sept. 13-15 meeting within the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan.
Nevertheless, Metropolitan Anthony, who met with the pope on the Vatican Aug. 5, said there was still hope for the pope and the patriarch to fulfill and that an eventual meeting between the 2 “should be an independent event by virtue of its importance.”
Patriarch Kirill’s outspoken support of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has caused ruptures throughout the Russian Orthodox Church and strained relations with the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis has been wanting to fulfill with the patriarch for months, telling Univision, the Spanish-language network, in an interview that aired in the USA July 11 that he planned to fulfill with the patriarch during his visit to Kazakhstan.
Patriarch Kirill’s outspoken support of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, particularly his justification of the war as a defense against Western immorality, has caused ruptures throughout the Russian Orthodox Church and strained relations with the Catholic Church.
The pope last met with the Russian patriarch in a Zoom meeting in mid-March. In a May 3 interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the pope told the patriarch that “we should not clerics of the state, we cannot use the language of politics, but of Jesus.”
The pope told the patriarch that “we should not clerics of the state, we cannot use the language of politics, but of Jesus.”
Pope Francis’ comment that “the patriarch cannot turn himself into Putin’s altar boy” prompted criticism from the Moscow Patriarchate.
It’s the second time that a face-to face meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill has been canceled. In an interview with the Argentine day by day newspaper La Nación April 21, the pope said the pair were to fulfill in Jerusalem in June.
Nevertheless, he said, the Vatican’s diplomatic team understood that such a gathering “presently could lead on to much confusion.”
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Patriarch Kirill’s support for the war in Ukraine, said he was grateful the proposed meeting in Jerusalem was canceled, adding that a gathering between the 2 while “acts of war are still going down” would “be exposed to serious misunderstandings.”
“It’s because it may very well be misunderstood because the pope’s support of the patriarch’s position, which might badly damage the pope’s moral authority,” Cardinal Koch told the German newspaper Die Tagespost in late June.
