“Putin’s altar boy”, the phrase of Pope Francis who locked the dialogue with the Russian Patriarch

The Russian Patriarchate described this Thursday as “unfortunate” the version given by Pope Francis about his conversation with Patriarch Kirill shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in an interview he gave to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Wednesday.

On that note, he said he asked her not to go “the boy at the altar” by Vladimir Putin at a possible meeting.

“Sadly a month and a half after talking to Patriarch Kirill, Pope Francis chose a wrong tone to broadcast the content of this conversation, ”the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Patriarchate said in a statement, the Tass agency reported.

“These statements – the note adds – will hardly help establish a constructive dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches, which is particularly necessary at this time”.

The two religious leaders held a virtual meeting on March 16.

In that context, no agreement for a possible meeting between the Pontiff and Putin, a Kremlin spokesman said.

So Dmitri Peskov referred to Francis ’statements, which on Tuesday were confirmed in an interview the Holy See insisted on the Russian government for a meeting with Putin in Moscow.

“Such initiatives are presented in the lines of diplomatic services. There are no agreements in the meetings,” the Kremlin official explained.

According to Tass, he also did not think of the need for such a meeting. “Nothing in that sense and no specific initiatives have been announced,” Putin’s press chief added.

The Pope told Corriere della Sera that he had talked to Kirill for 40 minutes by zoom. “The first twenty with a letter in his hand read to me all the justifications for the war. I listened and said to him: I understand nothing. Brother, we are not state priests, we cannot use the language of politics, but that’s Jesus, we are shepherds of the same holy man of God, ”he told her.

“For this reason, we must find paths of peace, to end the firing of weapons. The Patriarch cannot be Putin’s altar boy,” Francis told him.

In its note, the Patriarchate rebuilt, instead, what Kirill had said, recalling that “the conflict began in 2014 with events on Maidan square in kyiv”, and that “by the end of the Soviet era, Russia was received security that NATO would not move an inch to the East.

A consideration, moreover, that can certainly be seen in the Pope’s comment on Tuesday about “NATO barking at Russia’s door”, which also had a bad reaction in countries like Poland.

For his part, Kirill insisted that “Russia has never attacked anyone in its history, it only protects its borders.”

That position earned him, in the sixth package of sanctions against Russia disputed in Brussels, the accusation of being “responsible for supporting or implementing actions or policies that undermine or threaten territorial integrity, sovereignty and freedom. of Ukraine ”and“ one of the most important supporters of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine ”.

Meanwhile, Francis, in an audience he held on Wednesday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, voiced growing alarm about the possible entry of atomic arsenals, describing the use and possession of nuclear weapons as “unthinkable.”

According to his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Pontiff does not want “more divisions” in the Moscow Patriarchate. As for agreeing to meet with Putin, “there are no more steps to be taken” and they are waiting for him to “react” and tell them “what they want.”

With information from ANSA