Putin and politics loom over the Pope and the Patriarch
Putin and politics loom over the Pope and the Patriarch Saturday February 13 th , 2016 at 11:30 AM 1 Share Pope Francis and Patriarch Kiril exchange a document on religious unity in Havana on Friday. It is the first meeting between a pope and a Russian patriarch As the heads of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches met on Friday for the first ever such meeting, their aides aimed to keep things simple. “We don’t want this to become a big political show,” said Father Alexander Volkov, spokesman for the Moscow patriarchate. And yet when Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill retreated into a room at Havana’s José Martí International airport in a renewed attempt to mend a troubled relationship that has split Christianity for almost a millennium, they had another man to thank, and a politician at that: Russian president Vladimir Putin. Alexander Andreev, Russia’s ambassador to the Vatican, told Russian newspaper Kommersant that “persona