Vladimir Putin has visited Mount Athos, one of Orthodox Christianity’s holiest sites.
The Russian president joined celebrations at the monastery of St Panteleimon to mark 1,000 years of Russian monks at Mount Athos, in northern Greece.
Vladimir Putin was accompanied by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
Mount Athos is an all-male Orthodox enclave of 20 monasteries. Women have been banned for over 1,000 years.
Greece and Russia are both largely Orthodox Christian countries and have close religious ties.
Vladimir Putin traveled to the peninsula by boat, as there is no road access, and held talks with Greece’s President Prokopis Pavlopoulos.
As he was welcomed at the enclave’s administrative centre, Karyes, Vladimir Putin said he was convinced that the Russian connection to Greece as well as to the holy Mount Athos “could only get stronger”.
After attending a service in Karyes, Vladimir Putin traveled on to the monastery of St Panteleimon, unaccompanied by the media.
It was Vladimir Putin’s second visit to the monastery; he traveled there in 2005 as the first Russian leader to visit the site.
Despite his background as a KGB officer in Communist times, when the Soviet state frowned on religion, Vladimir Putin has embraced his Orthodox faith and is believed to have a good relationship with Patriarch Kirill.
After meeting Pope Francis in Cuba, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, flew to Antarctica to walk with penguins.
Patriarch Kirill held prayers at a research station before taking a walk with the animals.
A picture of the 69-year-old kneeling eye-to-eye with one went viral.
Russia has 10 research stations in the Antarctic, able to accommodate up to 120 people. Patriarch Kirill visited one, the Bellingshausen research station on the island of Waterloo.
Photo RT
The Russian Orthodox church near the Bellingshausen station, which opened in 2004, is the only church on the continent to hold services all year round, with priests spending the winter there.
Church officials said Patriarch Kirill prayed for polar researchers, including 64 Russians who have died on polar expeditions.
The patriarch’s visit was the first ever by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to Antarctica. It followed the first encounter between a head of Russian Orthodox Church and a pope in nearly 1,000 years.
Since becoming Pope in 2013, Pope Francis has called for better relations between the different branches of Christianity.
Pope Francis has met Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill at Havana airport to hold historic talks.
Both leaders have called for restored Christian unity between the two churches.
The meeting was the first between a Pope and a Russian Church head since the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity split in the 11th Century.
In a joint declaration, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill also urged the world to protect Christians from persecution in the Middle East.
The two-hour talks took place during Pope Francis’s stopover on his way to Mexico. Patriarch Kirill is visiting Cuba, Brazil and Paraguay.
The two leaders embraced and kissed each other at the start of the meeting on February 12.
“I’m happy to greet you, dear brother,” the Russian Church leader said.
“Finally,” Pope Francis said.
At a news conference after the meeting, Patriarch Kirill said the discussions were “open” and “brotherly”, while Pope Francis described them as “very sincere”.
“We hope our meeting contributes to the re-establishment of this unity wished for by God,” their joint declaration said.
The document called on the world community to defend Christians, saying that “in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated.”
“Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed.”
Patriarch Kirill has been the head of the Russian Orthodox Church since February 2009, while Pope Francis took up his role in March 2013.
The Roman Catholic Church has more than a billion members worldwide, while the Russian Orthodox Church numbers about 165 million.
The Russian Church is the largest and most powerful in the Orthodox faith, which is made up of a number of separate churches.
Vatican has ties with Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I – nominal head of Eastern Orthodox Churches, but Cuba talks is the first between a Pope and a Patriarch of Russian Church.
The Russian Church is the largest and most powerful Church in Orthodoxy.
Cuba was reportedly chosen as the place of their first meeting because it is far from Rome, Istanbul and Moscow with all their historical baggage of schism.
Pope Francis will meet the head of Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, in Cuba next week.
The Russian Orthodox Church said the “persecution of Christians” would be the central theme of the historic meeting.
Pope Francis will stop over in Cuba on his way to Mexico.
It is the first papal meeting with a Russian Church head since the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity split in the 11th Century.
The meeting is due to take place at Havana airport, where Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill will sign a joint declaration.
Patriarch Kirill is due in Cuba for an official visit at the same time as Pope Francis’ stopover in Havana.
In a joint statement, the two churches said the meeting would “mark an important stage in relations between the two churches”.
They invited “all Christians to pray fervently for God to bless this meeting, that it may bear good fruits.”‘
Since becoming Pope in 2013, Francis has called for better relations between the different branches of Christianity.
The foreign policy chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Illarion, told reporters that there were still differences between the two churches, but that international events had pushed the leaders to meet.
Metropolitan Illarion said: “The situation in the Middle East, in northern and central Africa and in other regions where extremists are perpetrating a genocide of Christians, requires immediate action and an even closer cooperation between Christian churches.
“In this tragic situation, we need to put aside internal disagreements and pool efforts to save Christianity in the regions where it is subject to most severe persecution.”
Patriarch Kirill has been the head of the Russian Orthodox Church since February 2009, while Pope Francis took up his role in March 2013.
The Roman Catholic Church has more than a billion members worldwide, while the Russian Orthodox Church numbers about 165 million.
The Orthodox Church is made up of more than 10 separate churches. The Vatican has existing ties with the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, but this will be the first meeting between the Pope and the patriarch of the Russian Church, which is the largest and most powerful Church in Orthodoxy.
Orthodox Church patriarchs in Kiev and Moscow have highlighted during their Easter messages the deep division in Ukraine, where a tense stand-off is continuing in the east.
The head of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church Patriarch Filaret accused Russia of “aggression” and “evil”.
Russian Church Patriarch Kirill asked God to end the designs of those who wanted to rip apart Russia and Ukraine.
Pro-Russian activists in the east continue to occupy government offices.
Meanwhile Russia media are reporting several deaths in a gun battle near the eastern town of Sloviansk.
Reports of fatalities in the region have appeared before but have not been independently confirmed.
A mediator from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is scheduled to hold talks with them on Sunday.
Russian Church Patriarch Kirill asked God to end the designs of those who wanted to rip apart Russia and Ukraine
Ertogrul Apakan, who heads the special OSCE mission in Kiev, said his deputy would be in Donetsk to try to get them to comply with an agreement reached on Thursday to ease the crisis.
In his Easter message, Patriarch Filaret said: “Against our peace-loving nation, which voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons, there has been aggression, there has been injustice.
“A country which guaranteed the integrity and inviolability of our territory has committed aggression. God cannot be on the side of evil, so the enemy of the Ukrainian people is condemned to defeat.
“Lord, help us resurrect Ukraine.”
In Moscow, Patriarch Kirill appealed for peace, saying it “should reign in the hearts and minds of our brothers and sisters by blood and by faith”.
But he also said Ukraine was “spiritually and historically” at one with Russia, and he prayed for it to have authorities that were “legitimately elected”.
“We are a single people before God,” he said.
Ukraine’s acting President, Oleksandr Turchynov, said in his Easter message: “We are living in a fateful time when the Ukrainian people have decisively affirmed their striving for freedom and justice.”
In an interview to be aired in full later on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Ukraine’s interim PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to “restore the Soviet Union”.
If Vladimir Putin succeeded, Arseniy Yatsenyuk says, it would be “the biggest disaster of this century”.
Ukraine has been in crisis since President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled in February.
Russia then annexed the Crimean peninsula – part of Ukraine but with a Russian-speaking majority – in a move that provoked international outrage.
The annexation followed a referendum in Crimea that backed a move to join the Russian Federation.
Pro-Russian activists then occupied buildings in several eastern Ukrainian cities, many calling on Moscow to support them.
Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US agreed during talks in Geneva on Thursday that illegal military groups in Ukraine must be dissolved, and that those occupying government premises must be disarmed and leave.
But the separatists’ spokesman in the city of Donetsk said that the Kiev government was “illegal”, and vowed they would not go until it stepped down.
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