Pope Francis Continues to Prepare for Meeting With Patriarch Kirill in Jerusalem

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Pope Francis said that the preparations for his meeting with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in Jerusalem continue and that he considers the patriarch his brother, Leonid Sevastianov, chairman of Russia-based World Union of Old Believers, told Sputnik on Sunday.

"He [Pope Francis] wrote to me recently - about a week ago - that they were preparing a meeting in Jerusalem. And he said that he considers Patriarch Kirill his brother, that they have complete mutual understanding," Sevastianov, who regularly communicates with the pontiff, said.

Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill first met in Cuba in February 2016, in a historic meeting marking the first face-to-face between the heads of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church since the 1054 schism. The second meeting was initially scheduled for June 14, 2022 in Jerusalem but ended up being postponed "by mutual agreement" to avoid controversies amid the Ukraine crisis.

Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Anthony, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department of external church relations, told Sputnik that the preparation of a new meeting, which could take place in Jerusalem in the spring, has been suspended by the Vatican.