Catholic-Orthodox Church Heads’ Meeting to Give 'Huge Impetus to Peace’

The first ever meeting between the leaders of the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches will deliver a "huge impetus to peace," Russian Ambassador to Cuba Mikhail Kamynin said Friday.

HAVANA (Sputnik) – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is expected to meet Pope Francis at the airport in Havana at around 19:15 GMT and hold a three-hour conversation to be followed by a joint statement.

"I am convinced that the meeting in Havana will give huge impetus to peace. I think that a lot will be seen in a new light after that," Kamynin said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Classifying the upcoming meeting as one of the most important events in modern history, Kamynin argued that its real scope and significance was "yet to be properly appreciated."

The Russian envoy asserted that Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis’ first meeting would "leave a deep mark and change the course of history" because religious issues have come to the forefront of international affairs.

The Russian Orthodox Church sees the meeting at Jose Marti International Airport as a way to build on the churches' common stance that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa should be classified as "a real genocide." That position is anticipated to be documented in the joint declaration, the text of which was agreed on earlier.