Patriarch Kirill: Latin American Tour Connects Church, Russia With World

Global pilgrimages allow people to understand Russian Orthodoxy and Russia itself, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said Monday on arrival in Moscow after a historic Latin American tour.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia traveled to Cuba, Paraguay, Brazil and a Russian station on an island off the coast of Antarctica as part of his February 11-21 trip.

"Pilgrimages of this kind allow our homeland, our church, to community with so many people in the world. People are beginning to understand what is Orthodoxy, what is Russian Orthodoxy, what is our country," Patriarch Kirill told reporters.

Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis held historic talks in Havana on February 12, issuing a joint declaration urging global action to stop the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The meeting was hailed as a milestone because it marked the first time a Catholic pope and an Orthodox patriarch met since Christianity split into western and eastern branches in 1054.

The results of Patriarch Kirill’s travels are scheduled to be summarized at the February 24 press conference in the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency building, attended by the patriarch’s press secretary and a number of church liaisons with the media.