by Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Plans for a June meeting between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril, who backed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, have been put on hold, the ruler said on Friday. pontiff during an interview granted to an Argentine daily.
The pope, who has repeatedly denounced the war in Ukraine, told the Argentine daily La Nación that he regretted the cancellation of the meeting, the Vatican diplomats having indicated that it “could lead to a lot of confusion at the moment “.
According to a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, Metropolitan Hilarion, quoted by the RIA news agency, the meeting was postponed because “the events of the last two months” would have created many difficulties in its preparation.
Reuters reported on April 11 that the Vatican is considering extending the pope’s trip to Lebanon scheduled for June 12-13 by one day so that he can meet the patriarch on June 14 in Jerusalem.
This meeting would have been the second between a head of the Catholic Church and that of the Russian Orthodox Church, after that of Cuba in 2016 which was the first since the Great Schism of 1054.
Patriarch Kirill, 75, has given his full blessing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a move that has divided the Orthodox Church and sparked an unprecedented internal rebellion, according to theologians and scholars. academics.
Pope Francis condemned the war in Ukraine last Saturday, during the Easter Vigil, and denounced “the darkness of war, of cruelty.”
Asked by La Nación why he never specifically cited Russia or Vladimir Putin, the head of the Catholic Church explained that “a pope never appoints a head of state, let alone a country , who is superior to his head of state”.
The Pope also explained why he has not yet visited Ukraine: “I cannot do anything that would jeopardize higher objectives, which are the end of the war, a truce or at least a humanitarian corridor. What good would it do for the pope to go to Kyiv if the war continues the next day?”
Vladimir Putin, a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, describes the offensive in Ukraine as a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country.
(Report Philip Pullella, French version Diana Mandiá; editing by Kate Entringer)