BRASILIA (Sputnik) – The destinations on Patriarch Kirill’s February 11-21 trip included Cuba, Paraguay, Brazil and a Russian station on an island off the coast of Antarctica. There at the Bellingshausen station on King George Island (Waterloo island in Russian), photographs of the Patriarch visiting a penguin colony drew widespread online and media attention.
The patriarch previously visited Brazil in 2008, as then-chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.
This year, Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis held historic talks in Havana on February 12, issuing a joint declaration urging global action to stop the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
The meeting was hailed as a milestone because it marked the first time a Catholic pope and an Orthodox patriarch met since Christianity split into western and eastern branches in 1054.
