Pope Francis met on Friday with Bishop Antoni of Volokolamsk, the second most powerful leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, a month before a summit due to take place between him and the top Orthodox chief Cyril, who supports the Ukraine War.
It was the first meeting between the two since Antoni’s predecessor, Hilarion, was ousted in June in an abrupt decision indicating discord at the top of the Moscow Patriarchate over the conflict.
The Vatican listed Antoni in the pope’s official engagements and released photos of the two leaders, but gave no details of what was discussed at the private audience.
Francis will attend a congress of religious leaders in Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan, on September 13 and 15, where he said he hopes to meet Cyril.
Bulat Sarsenbayev, head of the Kazakh organization that hosts the congress, told the Astana Times that Cirilo confirmed his presence at the event.
A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Cyril has enthusiastically supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which the patriarch sees as a bulwark against a West he sees as decadent.
Cyril’s stance caused a rift with the Vatican and sparked an internal rebellion that led to the severing of ties of some local Orthodox churches with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Francis, who called the conflict a “cruel and senseless war of aggression”, had planned to meet Cyril on June 14 in Jerusalem but canceled after being advised by Vatican diplomats.
They met once, in Cuba in 2016, in the first meeting between a pope and a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church since the great schism that split the two groups in 1054.
In an interview with Reuters last month, Francis said he wanted to visit Kiev after his July 30 return from Canada, but that he also wanted to go to Moscow, preferably first, to promote peace.
Putin described the actions in Ukraine as a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. Ukraine and the West have labeled the conflict a Russian war of unprovoked aggression.
