Metropolitan Antonij of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, described relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church as at an impasse.<\/p>\n
For the program, \u201cChurch and Peace,\u201d on the \u201cRussia 24\u201d TV channel, he said that relationship between the two Churches are \u201cpractically frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n
This comes less than one month after Pope Francis' trip to Kazakhstan for the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, where many had anticipated a meeting between the Pope and Patriarch Kirill.<\/p>\n
In the end, however, Kirill did not attend. But, in a brief encounter with Metropolitan Antonij, Pope Francis asked for another chance to meet with the Patriarch.<\/p>\n
How is Patriarch Kirill? <\/p>\n
Good, good.<\/em> <\/p>\n Tell him I say hello. <\/p>\n We spoke yesterday and he asked me to pass along his greeting.<\/em> <\/p>\n As do I to him.<\/p>\n That at another time we may have another meeting. The Metropolitan could be referring to a comment the Pope made on his flight back from Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n POPE FRANCIS<\/strong> The only times Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill have met were in person in 2016 in Havana, Cuba and for a video call in March.<\/p>\n KG <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The only times Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill have met were in person in 2016 in Havana, Cuba and for a video call in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":43382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5l8iXh-g19g&ab_channel=ROMEREPORTSinEnglish","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bvaticanoemoscarelazioneeng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bvaticanoemoscarelazioneint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43381"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em>
\nIn the interview for \u201cRussia 24,\u201d Metropolitan Antonij also said that comments made by the Pope and his aides have \u201cnot contributed to the preparation of a new meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSometimes dialogue must be done like this, but it has to be done. It smells bad, but it has to be done. Always one step ahead, an outstretched hand, always. Because otherwise we close the only reasonable door to peace.<\/em><\/p>\n