"The news about the meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill is really very important for the Cuban Catholic Church, we can already say that this event is an historic one that has not happened for centuries," Monsignor Jose Felix Perez, executive secretary of the Cuban Bishops Conference, told RIA Novosti.
The main issue on the agenda is expected to be the persecution Christians in the Middle East and Africa. The Russian Orthodox Church stated that the Patriarch and the Pope were expected to discuss the issues of terrorism, Christianity in the modern world and withdrawal from the Christian values in the Western countries. The issues of the current state of affairs in Ukraine will also be on the agenda.
"This is especially important if we take into account the importance of this event for the future, in order to achieve better mutual understanding between the two churches… This is also important from the point of view of what the churches can do to facilitate putting an end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East," Felix Perez said.
The East-West Schism occurred in 1054 as communion broke between the Latin-dominated Catholic Church and the Greek-dominated Eastern Orthodox Church over theological and ecclesiastical differences, as well as a conflict between the archpriests of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople.
