Pope and head of Orthodox to make history

POPE Francis is to meet the head of the Russian Orthodox Church next week, in the first such encounter between the western and eastern branches of Christianity in nearly 1,000 years.

The churches split after the Great Schism of 1054 and have been riven by mistrust and suspicion ever since.

The meeting between the head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, who leads 170 million Orthodox Christians, will take place in Cuba on Feb 12.

The Caribbean island is regarded as neutral territory. It had a strong Catholic following until the Communist Revolution of the 1950s and then developed close ties with the Soviet Union.

The Pope will stop over in Havana as he travels to Mexico for a six-day visit, while the Patriarch will be in Cuba on an official visit.

They will hold a private, two-hour meeting in Havana airport, after which the two leaders will sign a joint declaration and exchange gifts, presided over by Raoul Castro, the Cuban president.

“The meeting ... will be the first in history and will mark an important stage in relations between the two Churches,” the Vatican said.

The initiative was made possible by a shared concern for the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant commits atrocities in Iraq and Syria.