Pope meets with Russian Orthodox Patriarch in Cuba

“We are brothers, not competitors. No crime may be committed in God’s name. Nothing is more important than the responsibility of religious leaders to make the world peaceful.”

Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill embraced and kissed each other on the cheek in a meeting room at Jose Marti airport in Havana on Friday afternoon. The two people seemed deeply touched by the historic encounter between the Roman Catholic Pope and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in almost 1,000 years.

The encounter between the two religious leaders is the first time since the Great Schism of 1054 when Eastern Orthodoxy split with Rome. The two-hour long historic meeting was brokered by Cuba’s President Raul Castro. Pope Francis stopped in Cuba en route to Mexico to meet Patriarch Kirill.

The Pope said, “We share the same baptism,” and Patriarch Kirill said, “We spoke with an open heart.” After the meeting, they announced a 30-point joint declaration, expressing concerns over the reality where Christians are prosecuted by extremists in the Middle East and North Africa while appealing the international community to protect them from further sacrifice. In addition, they said that they would ally with the poor who suffer in economic inequality and refugees seeking safety in neighboring lands.

Constantinople, now Istanbul in Turkey, is a spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church. After Constantinople was taken over by Islam in 1453, the center was effectively relocated to Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church, which accounts for two-thirds of 250 million believers around the world, did not have a good relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.

Foreign Policy said on Sunday that the meeting between the heads of the two churches was not just about religion but about politics. The magazine focused on the fact that the meeting place was Cuba. A Catholic country with a close relationship with the former Soviet Union, Cuba made it known to the world that it is the right country that can mediate a new cold war between the east and the west since the restoration of the diplomatic relationship with the U.S.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday, “The first meeting between Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and the Pope of the Catholic Church Francis in Cuba in about 1,000 years is a perfect example of a dialogue between the east and the west that can address international conflicts.”

파리=전승훈특파원 raphy@donga.com