Early talks between Kirill and Francis ruled out

A Russian Orthodox leader has said it would be “too soon” for the Pope to meet Patriarch Kirill, despite recent “considerable improvements” in Catholic-Orthodox relations, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“A meeting has been long discussed, and the Russian Orthodox hierarchy has never rejected such a possibility,” said Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, the Russian Church’s foreign relations director. “But objective conditions are still not allowing this to happen. A meeting should be well prepared, with agreement first on the main issues, so this could be reflected in a joint statement.” In an interview with Serbia’s Vecherniye Vedomosti daily, he said Francis had “repeatedly shown interest” in cooperating with the Russian Orthodox Church, but the “main obstacle” remained Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, which “used openly Russophobic rhetoric”.