MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. The whole world, members of all the religious confessions and atheists will be looking forward to a meeting between the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, Kirill I, and Pope Francis I, who will most likely issue a call to global leaders to prevent World War III, experts said in a mini-poll taken by TASS.
A joint report released by the press services of the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, says the meeting between the Patriarch and the Pope will take place on February 12 at Havana’s Jose Marti international airport. Kirill I and Francis I are expected to sign a joint declaration on future relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church.
At the time of the historic meeting, Kirill I will be making an official visit to Cuba. Francis I will make a stopover in Havana on the way to Mexico.
The milestone event will include a private conversation between the two top clerics.
"The world of nowadays is rolling straight into a Third World War and all other problems move backstage compared to this one," Dr. Anatoly Krasikov, the director of the Center for Studies of Religion and Society at the Institute of European Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences told TASS.
Once in the past, Dr. Krasikov who is a top-rated expert on religion now was the chief of TASS bureau in Rome. Simultaneously, he was the only Soviet correspondent accredited in the Vatican.
"I spent about an hour today speaking over the phone with an old friend of mine, Archbishop Loris Francesco Capovilla, who served as the personal secretary to the great peacekeeper, Pope John XXIII," he said.
"Monsignor Capovilla has turned 100 years old but he has a really bright mind and he and I reached a common conclusion, namely, that if Kirill I and Francis I repeat the deed of John XXIII who prevented a war between the USSR and the US during the Caribbean crisis of 1962, their names will be entered in the annals of history," Dr. Krasikov said.
Alexei Makarkin, a Deputy Director General at the Center for Political Technologies noted a critical element in Pope Francis’s attitude towards the US and the concept of the unipolar world. He added that the Pope defends the interests of Middle Eastern Christians.
"The Russian Orthodox Church may form quite fruitful relations with the incumbent pontiff," Dr. Makarkin said. "Proceeding from the community of many positions, the dialogue between the Vatican and Moscow Patriarchate can be a successful one."
The Russian Orthodox Church uploaded a report on Friday saying, among other things, that preparations for a meeting between the Russian Patriarch and the Pope of Rome started out in the 1990’s.
Through all these years, however, the rampage of three western diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate by the disciples of the so-called Greek Catholic Church (aka Catholic of the Eastern Rite) at the very end of the 1980’s and the beginning of the 1990’s.
"The situation that has taken shape in the Middle East, Northern and Central Africa and some other regions where extremists are exterminating the Christian population requires urgent measures and close collaboration between the Christian Churches," the report said.
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