Today’s historic meeting between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Cuba is another occasion that Putin will seek to turn to his advantage. The meeting will be the first between a Roman Pontiff and a Russian Patriarch since Christianity’s Great Schism in 1054, when theological differences split the faith into its Western and Eastern branches. Since then, the Orthodox Church (in Russian, Pravoslavie, literally the “right worship”) has been considered the only correct form of Christianity in Russia, with other denominations dismissed for their support of individualism and insufficient reverence of the human soul.
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