Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Pope will meet, but not now – Metropolitan Hilarion
Moscow, March 14, Interfax – The Russian Orthodox Church said its position on the possibility of a meeting between the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Pope has not changed.
“In a nutshell, I think it (such a meeting) will happen,” Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, said in an interview with Dozhd television.
There are no time frameworks because the Russian Church “is concerned about the content of this meeting, not its time and location,” he said.
“Such a meeting will take place when we feel that both sides are ready for such a meeting to bring real results and really improve the situation in the Christian world,” he said.
Work is being done on this, but it takes patience “because the main obstacle to such a meeting is the religious situation in Western Ukraine, which began there in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” he said.
“We expect very specific steps from the Catholic Church to begin improving this situation,” Metropolitan Hilarion said.
