According to Reuters, a senior Russian Orthodox official told the Russian news agency RIA on 24 August that Kirill will not attend the Congress of Leaders of World Religions in the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan next month. Francis, who is slated to attend the gathering, was said to be hoping for an encounter with Kirill on the sidelines of the event.

While the two met in 2016 in Havana, the abrupt cancellation marks the second time since the Ukraine war started that a chance for the two church leaders to meet has been scratched. Francis was expected to speak with Kirill in June in Jerusalem, but Vatican officials were concerned that the encounter would have diplomatic repercussions.

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In a recent media interview Francis says Patriarch Kirill's support of the war in Ukraine became clear to him during their 40-minute zoom discussion in March.

In this, Kirill spent half the time reading out justifications for President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. "I listened and told him: I don't understand anything about this.

"Brother, we are not state clerics, we cannot use the language of politics, but that of Jesus.

"We are shepherds of the same holy people of God. That is why we must seek ways of peace."

It was in this context that Francis added: "The Patriarch cannot become Putin's altar boy."

Francis has successfully engaged with Kirill in the past.

In 2016 he and the Patriarch had an historic meeting in Havana, Cuba (pictured) - the first in nearly 1,000 years since the split between Eastern orthodoxy and Rome.

A second encounter had been planned to take place in Jerusalem in June this year but has been called off.

Steadfast, diplomatic peacemaking

On Sunday, the Pope appealed for peace in Ukraine and called the suffering of vulnerable elderly people and children a "macabre regression of humanity".

He has offered to meet Putin in Moscow as part of the Holy See's peace efforts but the Kremlin has yet to respond.

"I fear that Putin cannot and does not want to have this meeting right now," he says.

His efforts for peace have seen him repeatedly condemn the invasion of Ukraine in February and the suffering it is causing. He avoids mentioning Russia and Putin by name however.

Meantime, the Vatican seeks to work through its diplomatic channels and maintain dialogue with the Russian orthodox leadership.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See's Secretary of State and - in the pope's words - a "great diplomat", has offered the Vatican's services as a mediator.

It is possible that NATO "barking at the door of Russia" may have facilitated the conflict, Francis suggests.

He likens the situation in Ukraine to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1930s civil war in Spain, in his condemnation of the arms trade.

Wars take place to "test" the weapons that have been made, he says.

"I don't know how to answer- I am too far away - whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians."

Back in 2014, the Pope warned that a third world war was taking place in a piecemeal fashion. At that time, he pointed to conflicts in Syria, Yemen and "now one war after another in Africa".

During his meeting last month with the President of Hungary, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian leader told him that Russia planned to end the war on May 9, when Russia celebrates its victory over Nazi Germany.

"I am pessimistic," Francis says.

"But we must make every possible effort to stop the war."

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: AmericaMagazine

And there will be no papal visit to Kyiv while war rages, Pope Francis said in an interview with the Argentine daily newspaper La Nación on 21 April.

Pope Francis told reporters on 2 April that he was considering a possible visit to the Ukrainian capital.

But in his latest interview, he told La Nación: "I cannot do anything that puts higher objectives at risk, which are the end of the war, a truce or at least a humanitarian corridor."

"What good would it do for the pope to go to Kyiv if the war were to continue the next day?" he said.

When asked about Patriarch Kirill, Pope Francis said: "I am sorry that the Vatican has had to suspend a second meeting with Patriarch Kirill, which we had scheduled for June in Jerusalem." Their first meeting was in 2016 in Havana, the first time the Pope and the Moscow patriarch had met personally.

He explained that the Vatican's diplomatic team understood that such a meeting "at this time could lead to much confusion".

Personally, he said he seeks to promote fruitful interreligious dialogue because mutual understanding or agreement "is better than conflict".

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, had confirmed on 7 April that Pope Francis wanted a meeting with Patriarch Kirill in a "neutral place," but this has been cancelled. However, the patriarch's support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine could make a meeting inadvisable.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, told reporters on 22 April that "the events of the past two months necessitated adjustments to the plans and postponement of the meeting.

"Too many problems would now arise during its preparations in terms of security, logistics, and coverage of the meeting in the public space" he said, according to Interfax. "We will wait for a better time for this event."

The Vatican will never stop its diplomatic efforts to mediate an end to the war against Ukraine, Pope Francis said. He told La Nación that he is willing "to do everything" to end the bloodshed.

Sources

The Tablet

Francis said he planned to meet next week with the Russian church's foreign envoy "to agree on a possible meeting" with Patriarch Kirill. The pontiff noted that Kirill is due to travel in the coming weeks, but Francis said he was also "ready to go to Moscow" even if diplomatic protocols weren't yet in place.

"Because talking with a brother, there are no protocols," Francis told reporters as he traveled home from Greece. "We are brothers. We say things to each other's face like brothers."

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