Rep of Russian Church Explained When Meeting Between Patriarch and Pope Can Take Place

The head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Ilarion of Volokolamsk, said in answer to a question of a correspondent of Rain TV Channel that the meeting between the Russian patriarch and the Roman pope will take place, but the timing will depend on the readiness of the two sides to a productive dialogue. 

The Russian metropolitan once again said that the main obstacle for a productive dialogue is the problem of the interdenominational situation in the west of Ukraine in the 1980s and 1990s:  “We expect from the Catholic Church concrete steps to improve the situation,” said the metropolitan, reported tvrain.      

The hierarch didn't pass up the opportunity to express the traditional accusation against Greek Catholics, the “forced destruction of three Orthodox eparchies, the Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk ones.”