Metropolitan Hilarion: Meeting of patriarch and pope could be on neutral territory

The Russian Church has stated again that it is early to speak about definite terms of the meeting between Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Pope Benedict XVI.

“This prospect is real, but as we said earlier, we’re interested not in the fact of the meeting, but rather in its content. It has sense for us only if it means that our relations truly and radically improve,” the Izvestia daily quotes the Metropolitan as saying on Thursday.

If the meeting takes place, it is likely to happen “on a neutral territory,” he said.

The meeting between the patriarch and the pope should be carefully arranged “not only from the point of protocol, but from the point of finding a shared position on the questions that divide us today,” said the hierarch, mentioning that the main obstacle to the meeting is the situation in the western Ukraine.

“There still is no peace and harmony between Orthodox believers and Greek Catholics in the region. This topic has been touched many times, but we still don’t see any changes,” Metropolitan Hilarion said.