Pope meets with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met on Tuesday with Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the
Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church. Later this
evening a "Concert for Peace" in honor of Pope Francis, will be offered by the Russian
Orthodox Church, with music sung by a young Russian opera singer, Svetlana Kasyan,
at the Auditorium in Via della Conciliazione. The Pope’s meeting with Metropolitan
Hilarion comes as the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, is in Moscow, meeting
with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. Exploring Orthodox
spirituality and promoting reconciliation between Catholics and Orthodox is also the
focus of life at a Benedictine monastery in Belgium, commonly known as Chevetogne
Abbey. Founded in the 1920s, the monastery holds both Latin and Eastern rite services
every day and runs the world’s oldest ecumenical journal entitled ‘Irenikon’. During
her recent visit to Busan, South Korea for the World Council of Churches’ 10th
Assembly, Philippa Hitchen spoke with one of the editors of that journal, Fr Thaddeus
Barnas: