‘ FINALLY’: POPE MEETS RUSSIAN ORTHODOX LEADER
Pope Francis met Friday with Patriarch Kirill in the first papal meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, a historic development in the 1,000- year schism that divided Christianity.
“Finally!” Francis exclaimed as he embraced Kirill in the small, wood- panelled VIP room of Havana’s airport, where the threehour encounter was taking place. “We are brothers.”
They kissed one another three times on the cheek, and Kirill told the pope through an interpreter: “Now things are easier.”
The meeting and signing of a joint declaration was decades in the making and cemented Francis’ reputation as a risk- taking statesman who values dialogue, bridgebuilding and rapprochement at almost any cost.
Indeed, while the meeting with Kirill has been hailed by many as an important ecumenical breakthrough, Francis has come under criticism for essentially allowing himself to be used by a Russia eager to assert itself among Orthodox Christians and on the world stage at a time when the country is increasingly isolated from the West.