Editorial

A Hopeful Meeting, Long in Coming

Posted

The historic meeting last week between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow was a monumental event in Christianity on many levels, both real and symbolic.

It’s an encounter that we welcome, regardless of whether relations between the two churches continue to thaw and progress.

Factions on both sides of the divide have reason for concern, especially Eastern-rite Catholics in troubled Ukraine, but overall this is a healthy and hopeful move.

The Feb. 12 meeting at an airport in Havana brought together a Catholic pope and a Russian Orthodox patriarch for the first time ever—a very real breakthrough that took nearly 1,000 years to bring about, after the Great Schism that split Eastern and Western Christianity in 1054.

In the words of Pope Francis, as he and Kirill embraced, “Finally, we are brothers.”

That moment alone would be enough to project an image of solidarity, united in their respective churches’ shared beliefs in Christ and in their Christian mission to carry out the Gospel.

A joint declaration issued by the two religious leaders also made very clear their deep concern about the persecution of Christians in much of the Middle East, where churches are ravaged and looted and sacred objects profaned, and where “whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated.”

If their combined voices can exert any kind of pressure on the international community—including Russian President Vladimir Putin—to ease the turmoil in that part of the world, it would help protect not just the beleaguered Christian communities, but others as well.

We understand, however, the concerns that Eastern-rite Catholics have in Ukraine (Eastern-rite Catholics follow Orthodox liturgical traditions but are in full communion with Rome). This is especially troubling to Ukrainian Catholics in light of Russia’s support, under Putin’s leadership, for the war in Eastern Ukraine that saw Russia annex the Crimean peninsula, a move not recognized by the international community.

In their declaration, the pope and the patriarch deplored the hostility in Ukraine “that has already caused many victims, inflicted innumerable wounds on peaceful inhabitants and thrown society into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis.”

They called on their churches “to refrain from taking part in the confrontation and to not support any further development of the conflict.”

We would have liked to see something stronger, perhaps a call for all parties to seek a peaceful resolution. But we also recognize the deep ties that the Orthodox Church has to the government in Moscow, and this may be the extent to which the patriarch felt he could go.

We recognize, too, that Pope Francis has proven himself an extremely accomplished player on the diplomatic stage, and we don’t see him being manipulated by anyone’s political agenda.

The meeting with Kirill was announced at the last minute, but it was in planning for years behind the scenes. The actual opportunity arose when the pope’s pastoral trip to Mexico coincided with a visit by the patriarch to Cuba, making it an easy stopover for the papal plane and making an airport meeting room a good neutral ground for the spiritual leaders.

The Catholic Church, which has good working relations with other branches of Orthodox Christianity, has been trying for a long time to make some headway toward improving relations with the Russian Church.

Sometimes progress means taking one small step at a time. This was a giant step, even if it turns out to be the only one taken for a while.