THE announcement of a meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, due to take place in Cuba on February 12th, is certainly a spectacular moment in inter-church diplomacy. But contrary to many reports that have appeared in the press this weekend, it is certainly not the first top-level encounter between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the East-West schism of 1054.
Before speculating about what will happen in Havana, it's worth recalling, in barest outline, some landmarks in the history of this often tortured relationship. The rupture of 1054 was between Rome and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, modern Istanbul, an ancient see whose incumbent is still considered the "first among equals" among the prelates of the Orthodox Christian world. (The exact nature of Constantinople's primacy often triggers arguments, but not the primacy itself.) If there were a breakthrough moment in the relationship between those two institutions, it would have been the encounter in Jerusalem in 1964 between Pope Paul and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople. Without claiming to have settled any doctrinal differences, they agreed to set aside their ancient "anathemas" or mutual denunciations.
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