Metropolitan Antonio de Volokolamsk, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, said on Monday that relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church are “practically frozen”.
“I must say that recently, unfortunately, our relations have practically frozen”, he declared on the broadcast “Russia-24 TV” in the program “Church and the World”.
According to the metropolitan, some comments by Pope Francis and his deputies “do not contribute in any way” to the preparation of a meeting between Jorge Bergoglio and Patriarch Cyril and to further cooperation between the two Churches.
As an example, the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church recalled that the last meeting between the two religious leaders in March, via remote communication, was of a “philanthropic nature”.
However, after a while, the Russian Church was surprised to read the Pope’s interview, in which he “accepted statements that are absolutely unacceptable in this context, and declared that the meeting would not take place and generally went nowhere ” “.
Volokolamsk also stressed that the Vatican’s preparations for a meeting in Jerusalem were suspended.
Francisco and Cirilo held a historic meeting in Cuba in February 2016 and held a video conference on March 16 of this year. .
Cyril is aligned with Vladimir Putin’s regime and has already shown popular support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also blamed the West and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the conflict.
source: Noticias
