DECR MP head speaks about possible meeting between Pat Kirill and the Pope

Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis, 2016. Photo: RIA Novosti

A new meeting of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus, with Pope Francis will be announced shortly before the event. The Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate (DECR MP), Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, said this in an interview with Corriere della Sera.

The hierarch noted that two topics should go separately – the pope's visit to Russia and his meeting with Patriarch Kirill. While the visit of the pontiff is not on the agenda of "our bilateral relations", a new meeting of religious leaders, in his opinion, will take place.

“I think this meeting will take place, but we will only announce it a month or several months before the event. After all, the most important thing is not a meeting itself, but its results. The previous one bore good fruit,” said the head of the DECR MP.

The first meeting of Patriarch Kirill with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, which took place in Havana on February 12, 2016, was announced a week prior to the event. The second will also be announced a week earlier, "when we finalize everything", Metropolitan Hilarion added.

The UOJ wrote that on October 6, 2021, the head of the DECR MP met with Pope Francis in the Vatican.

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