Mutual interests

For the first time since his enthronement, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' held a bilateral meeting last Friday with Patriarch-Catholicos of All Georgia Ilia II.

Both primates were on a visit to Baku to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the head of the Caucasus Muslim Board, Allahshukur Pasha-zade, Interfax-Religion reports.

The Primate of the Russian Church expressed satisfaction with the opportunity to meet with Ilia II as part of the celebrations dedicated to the anniversary of A. Pasha-zade, and to talk about bilateral relations between Churches and peoples.

“It was noted that friendship, mutual understanding, cordial and fraternal relations between the two Churches are a guarantee that relations between peoples and states will be fully restored over time,” said Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, commenting on the results meeting of the two patriarchs to journalists.

According to Father Nikolai, Patriarch Kirill at the meeting compared the Churches with “two locomotives that will lead interstate relations that have reached a dead end,” but noted that this requires time.

The priest emphasized that “the two patriarchs met like two old friends,” although this was their first meeting after the election of Patriarch Kirill as primate of the Russian Church.

He also said that during the negotiations, issues of church life in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and issues of a general Orthodox nature were discussed.