Pope Francis said he plans to meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in September at an interreligious meeting in Kazakhstan.
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Pope Francis said he plans to meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in September at an interreligious meeting in Kazakhstan.
During February and March, Warsaw train stations were overflowing with women and children, refugees from the war in Ukraine.
With hundreds of millions of lives at risk because of the Russian blockade of grain exports out of Ukraine, Pope Francis appealed for an end to the blockade and a resolution to the crisis.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Albanians for supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia and compared their help to the actions of St. Teresa of Kolkata.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Pope Francis said he has reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin about meeting him in Moscow, warned Russian Patriarch Kirill against becoming an “altar boy” for the Kremlin, and compared the ongoing war in Ukraine to Rwanda’s genocide.
In its second appeal to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, the World Council of Churches asked that he use his spiritual authority to call for a ceasefire in Ukraine over the Eastern Orthodox Easter season so that believers will be able to celebrate the holiday in peace.
Representatives of both the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have condemned the destruction of churches and religious sites in Ukraine and have asked Russia to refrain from targeting them.
As Russia wages war against Ukraine, and China continues to threaten Taiwan, what might a new cold war mean for the Church, and how relevant are past papal diplomatic approaches?
At the start of Holy Week, Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for an immediate ceasefire to the war in Ukraine, saying Easter is a time to choose life over death.
Videos of dead Ukrainian civilians, many apparently executed by Russian troops, are further evidence that “the struggle of Ukraine is a spiritual struggle against evil, against the devil and his servants,” said Ukrainian Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych.