Both Moscow and Rome should be satisfied at the outcome of the visit on 30 May to the Vatican by a delegation of senior figures in the Russian Orthodox Church. Pope Francis made it clear that he is still seeking closer and warmer relations with Russia, even at a time of growing East-West tensions, and is hoping for real co-operation with the powerful Russian church in the humanitarian field and in helping Christians who face persecution in the Middle East. And the Russians will have been delighted that the Pope has firmly shut the door against any Catholic support for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in its quarrel with Moscow.

The talks, headed on the Russian side by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the Oxford-educated, powerful and hardline “Foreign Minister” of the Moscow Patriarchate, did not yield any real progress on the stuttering moves towards reunion between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches.