The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Kiril, and Pope Francis reconciled the text of the joint declaration that they will sign on Thursday in Havana, an ecclesiastic source confirmed here today.
Kiril left on Thursday for Cuba to pay his first pastoral visit as the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church since he was enthroned in January 2009.
The stopover in Havana is part of a Latin American tour that will also take him to Brazil and Paraguay until February 21.
Metropolitan Volokolamsk Hilarion told Russian media that the content of the joint declaration that Kiril and Pope Francis will sign on Thursday was reconciled by both leaders until late Wednesday. He did not elaborate on the content of the document.
Until the last moment, amendments were introduced, said the head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Russian Orthodox Church, although he did not rule out possible modifications to the document during the meeting of the two religious leaders at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport.
The dialogue between the maximum leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church has raised expectations of all kind in the community of parishioners and in public opinion in general.
After nearly 20 years of the negotiations on a possible meeting between then Patriarch Alexy II and Pope John Paul II in Austria, Kiril and the Latin American pontiff (the 266th pope), whose secular name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, will be the protagonists of a historic meeting.
It will be the first meeting in the history of the great schism of the Christian world since 1054, and it is seen as a hope in the rapprochement of the two churches. Pope Francis admitted that the meeting was secretly negotiated for two years.
Hilarion noted, however, that the prelates will not say mass together. The protocol does not include joint liturgies, Metropolitan Volokolamsk told the TV channel Rossiya 24.
According to the priest, the Patriarch and the Supreme Pontiff will only talk and sign a joint declaration that would contain, allegedly, common stances on international terrorism, Christianity in today's world and the genocide of Christians, as the key issues on which they will focus during the nearly-three-hour-long meeting.
Presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov expressed hope in the success of the historic meeting in message from the Kremlin to approve the two dignitaries' decision to meet.