Pope Benedict is due to meet the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Rome today in what is hoped may pave the way for a meeting between the Pontiff and Patriarch Kirill of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Moscow at some future date.
Since the election of Patriarch Kirill to succeed Alexei II as Patriarch of Moscow in January, ecumenical contacts between the two churches have increased dramatically.
The new Russian Patriarch has strong personal ties with Pope Benedict having met him on three different occasions while serving as the chief ecumenical official for the Moscow patriarchate.
However, the secretary of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archpriest Igor Vyzhanov, has said Mr Medvedev's visit to the Vatican should not be seen as "a mediatory mission for bilateral relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church."
He underlined that the meeting between Pope Benedict and Mr Medvedev would be a “meeting between two statesmen".
This is Mr Medvedev first meeting with the Pope. He will hold conversations with Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Patriarch Kirill has expressed a keen interest in cooperating with the Catholic Church, especially in the struggle against secularism in Europe.
In another sign of the warming of relations between Rome and Moscow, the patriarchate has published a new book entitled Europe Spiritual Homeland, which is a collection of talks by Pope Benedict over the past decade — both before and after his election as Roman Pontiff — addressing the spiritual crisis in Europe.
The book, published in Italian and Russian, carries an introduction by Archbishop Hilarion, the chief ecumenical officer of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Although there has been no public discussion of any plan for a meeting between the Pope and the Russian Patriarch, officials of both the Vatican and the Moscow patriarchate have suggested in the past that such a meeting would probably take place neither in Rome nor in Moscow but at some “neutral” location.
The visit to Rome by President Medvedev is significant in itself, since the Russian leader has advanced the possibility that Russia might open a full embassy to the Holy See.
The Russian Federation currently has a special diplomatic representative at the Vatican.
