Havana is getting ready to host a historic meeting: Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Kiril will meet in this city to sign a joint declaration on February 12.
The two heads of the most influencial Christian churches in the world will meet face to face after several centuries of enmity and antagonism between their organizations.
According to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, this is a historic meeting, that they have been planning for a long time, and that will open a new age in the relations between the two churches.
Lombardy said that the event, “in the ecumenical journey and in the dialogue between Christian confessions, has an extraordinary importance.”
He also added that this meeting was not improvised, and that it had taken intense years of planning and negotiations.
Cuba has been selected as the “neutral” ground that both parties had in mind to avoid meeting at the Vatican or in Russia.
Russian Orthodox Church authorities also said that they had been planning a meeting like this over the last 20 years, but added that the “genocide of Christians at the hands of terrorists” had played a key role in finally making it happen.
Patriarch Kiril had planned to visit Cuba in February – his second trip to the island nation – responding to an invitation by Cuban Prisdent Raul Castro.
Pope Francis, on his part, had a trip scheduled to Mexico. Now he will be stopping at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana first to hold this historic meeting.
The secession of the Christian Church dates back to the disintegration of the Roman Empire and the appointment of the Roman pope as the head of Christianity. Moscow is considered the third biggest power in the Christian faith, after the Vatican and Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey.
Patriarch Kiril is the leader of two thirds of the 200 million orthodoxs that exist in the world.
“Cuba is honored to host this meeting of the heads of the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox churches, and will facilitate all the conditions for the historic event to happen,” announced a spokesperson from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This is nothing less than incredible! Such a historic moment and it will take place in Cuba! We are in the eye of the storm (in a good sense, of course!). The best for OnCuba team!