pope will visit russia

Cardinal Zuppi to visit Moscow as Pope Francis' peace envoy

By Devin Watkins

The Holy See Press Office confirmed on Tuesday that Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops' Conference, will embark on a visit to Moscow as an envoy of Pope Francis.

The visit, scheduled for 28-29 June 2023, aims to strengthen “gestures of humanity that can contribute to promoting a solution to the current tragic situation and find paths toward a just peace.”

Cardinal Zuppi will be accompanied by an Official from the Secretariat of State.

As he visits Moscow, Cardinal Zuppi will likely uphold Pope Francis desire for a resolution to the war on the European continent.

The Pope has been a vocal advocate for peace, consistently calling on world leaders and individuals alike to work towards resolving conflict through peaceful means.

He has made countless appeals for prayers for people suffering due to the war in Ukraine.

Previous visit to Kyiv

The Italian-born Cardinal’s visit comes on the heels of his previous visit to Kyiv, on 5-6 June, during which he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-level government officials.

During the meeting, Cardinal Zuppi conveyed Pope Francis' concern for the Ukrainian people.

The Cardinal emphasized the need for parties involved to prioritize dialogue and find common ground for a just resolution to the war.

The meeting with President Zelensky provided an opportunity to discuss steps to alleviate suffering, rebuild trust, and advance reconciliation.

Cardinal Zuppi reiterated the Vatican's readiness to assist through diplomatic channels and humanitarian initiatives.

As the papal peace envoy, Cardinal Zuppi's visit to Moscow seeks to underscore the Holy See’s dedication to actively engage in peacebuilding efforts and collaborate with international partners on behalf of peace.

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Pope meets with new Russian ambassador as second Moscow mission planned for his Ukraine peace

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the CEI (Italian Conference of Bishops), welcomes parishioners after celebrating Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow, on June 29, 2023. Pope Francis’ Ukraine peace envoy, Zuppi, went to China on the fourth leg of a mission that had already brought him to Kyiv, Moscow and Washington. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, file)

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Russia’s new ambassador to the Vatican met Sept. 18 with Pope Francis for a protocol visit, as signs emerged that the Vatican's Ukraine peace envoy could soon be undertaking a second mission to Moscow.

The Vatican said Ambassador Ivan Soltanovsky was presenting his credentials to Francis, signaling the official start of his term. His motorcade was seen leaving the Russian embassy the morning of Sept. 18, bound for the Vatican, and returning about two hours later.

Soltanovsky replaced Ambassador Alexander Avdeev, whom Francis met with on Feb. 25, 2022 in a remarkable in-person papal visit to the embassy the day after Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine.

The credential presentation appointment comes after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in recent days that Moscow was ready to meet again with Francis’ Ukraine peace envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, a veteran of the Catholic Church's peace initiatives.

"The Vatican is continuing its efforts. The papal envoy will come back (to Russia) soon," Lavrov said Sept. 15 at a roundtable discussion on Ukraine.

Since Zuppi was appointed in May, he has visited Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and Beijing. Initially his mandate appeared limited to measures to try to reunite Ukrainian children taken to Russia after Moscow’s invasion. But during his meeting last week in Beijing with Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, the resumption of stalled grain exports from Ukraine's Black Sea ports was also discussed.

Upon his return to Italy, Zuppi said the Beijing meeting represented an important exchange of ideas and he also voiced optimism at Lavrov’s "positive" opening to a second visit. During his first trip to Moscow in June, Zuppi met with Russia's minister for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, and an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in late March for Lvova-Belova and Putin, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine. Russian officials have denied any forced adoptions, saying some Ukrainian children are in foster care.

Zuppi told the TG2000 broadcaster of the Italian bishops conference this weekend that Lavrov’s openness to a second meeting was "important because peace is made through dialogue and finding the possible and necessary spaces. It’s certainly a positive declaration and goes in the direction hoped for by Pope Francis."

Francis has followed the Holy See’s tradition of neutrality in conflicts by trying to keep open paths of dialogue with both Ukraine and Russia. His stance, and admiration for Russia's imperial past and culture, has at times angered Ukraine, especially its Greek Catholic flock.

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Pope makes surprise visit to Russian Embassy to the Vatican

The visit came as a surprise as it did not follow typical protocol.

The Vatican press office confirmed that Pope Francis made a visit to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See to express his concern about the fighting in Ukraine on Friday morning.

The Russian Embassy to the Holy See is a short distance outside of Vatican City situated on the road leading into St. Peter's Square, and this was seen by most as a strong personal papal initiative.

Aside from saying the visit lasted just over an hour, the Vatican provided no further information nor distributed any video or photographs. The pope was seen leaving the embassy building seated in the front seat of a small, white car.

MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates

Ambassador Aleksandr Avdeyev, the Russian diplomat at the embassy, told Russian media that "the pope personally wanted to ask about the situation in Donbas and Ukraine" and expressed his great concern about the humanitarian situation and conditions of the population. He reportedly urged for the care of children, the sick and the people who were suffering.

The pope's surprise and unprecedented visit to the embassy took many Vatican watchers by surprise, as it is normal protocol for ambassadors to come to the Vatican to meet with the pope. However, Pope Francis has in the past dropped in to see people in Vatican offices outside the walls of the tiny state when he has urgent matters he wishes to discuss.

On Thursday, Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, said in a video statement released after the start of Russian military operations in Ukraine that although the tragic scenarios everyone feared were becoming reality "there is still time for goodwill, there is still room for negotiation." He said he hoped those who hold the destiny of the world in their hands would have a "glimmer of conscience."

Commentators have noted that the pope and the Vatican have been careful about publicly criticizing and naming Russia, some say, so as not to antagonize the Russian Orthodox Church.

On Wednesday at the end of his general audience in the Vatican, Pope Francis called on believers and nonbelievers to pray and fast for peace in Ukraine on Ash Wednesday to combat the "diabolical insistence, the diabolical senselessness of violence," saying that "once again the peace of all is threatened by partisan interests."

MORE: Questions about the Ukraine-Russia conflict, answered

He appealed to those with political responsibilities to do a serious examination of conscience before God and urged world leaders to "refrain from any action that would cause even more suffering to the people, destabilizing the coexistence between nations and discrediting international law."

Earlier Friday, the Vatican press office announced the pope would not make his scheduled one-day trip to Florence Sunday and would have to skip the Ash Wednesday ceremony in the Vatican at the start of Lent due to a flare up of knee pain. His doctors have told him he needs a longer period of rest, but that did not seem to stop him making Friday's surprise visit.

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Pope Francis’ secret Ukraine-Russia peace mission, explained

There are “new, but of course, confidential” developments in the Holy See’s mission to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, broke the news of the “new” developments when he spoke to journalists at the Lateran University in Rome May 10, but he did not elaborate further. However, he added significantly, “I believe the peace mission will move forward.”

Pope Francis first revealed that a mission aimed at stopping the war between Russia and Ukraine “is underway” on April 30. In the following days, spokespersons for both Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky said their respective sides knew nothing about such a mission. Cardinal Parolin, the pope’s right-hand man, challenged these denials on April 3 and said both sides were informed.

So, what is happening? Is there a peace mission? Why would Kyiv and Moscow deny any knowledge of it? What can we expect to happen next?

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Pope Francis has looked for ways to stop the war. To achieve that goal and serve as a mediator, he has sought to avoid taking sides. Nevertheless, he has stated clearly that Russia is the aggressor and several times a week speaks of “martyred Ukraine.” He has spoken out against the more than 430 days’ war on no less than 120 occasions, in speeches, homilies, press conferences and interviews.  

Pope Francis’ relationship with President Zelensky

Since the war started, Pope Francis has spoken twice by phone (Feb. 26 and March 22) with President Zelensky, whom he had met face to face in the Vatican on Feb. 8, 2020. Moreover, he has received the Ukrainian prime minister and many parliamentarians in private audiences since the Russian invasion and has also met the wives of Ukrainian soldiers whose husbands were prisoners of war, and many refugees, including children.

The Holy See has had a nuncio, an ambassador, in Kyiv, the Lithuanian-born Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, who has been there throughout the war and reports regularly on the situation to the pope and the Vatican.

Francis has had the Vatican engage in humanitarian initiatives during the war. He sent the Polish-born Cardinal Konrad Krajewski on several missions to Ukraine with various forms of humanitarian aid, including ambulances and thermal shirts. Francis has also been involved in the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine. Delegates from President Zelenskyy have brought the pope lists of names on at least five occasions, and he passed them onto the Russian authorities; many hundreds of prisoners have been released on both sides.

On the eve of his visit to Budapest, April 27, the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, visited Francis in the Vatican and asked him to facilitate the return of thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia during the war. The pope promised to do everything possible in this regard.

These humanitarian efforts have been like stars in the dark night of war.

Pope Francis’ relationship with Vladimir Putin

Ever since the war started, Pope Francis has tried to make direct contact with President Putin, but so far without success. On the second day of the war, casting aside protocol, Francis visited the Russian embassy to the Holy See and asked the ambassador to convey a message to President Putin, saying he was willing to go to Moscow to speak with him, but the Russian leader has refused to have any direct contact with the pope since he launched the invasion. Instead, he had his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, respond to Francis saying his involvement was “not necessary.”  

A follow-up phone call on the pope’s behalf on March 8, 2022, by Cardinal Parolin to Mr. Lavrov, repeating Francis’ call for a stop to the fighting, was equally unsuccessful. 

Speaking to journalists Sept. 15, 2022, after his visit to Kazakhstan, Pope Francis, responding to criticisms for not calling out Putin, emphasized the need for dialogue, even if it means engaging “with states that have started a war.”

Pope Francis: “I don’t exclude dialogue with any sort of power that is at war, even if it is with the aggressor. It may ​​‘smell,’ but one has to do it."

He said, “I don’t exclude dialogue with any sort of power that is at war, even if it is with the aggressor. It may ​​‘smell,’ but one has to do it. But we must always be one step ahead, with an outstretched hand, always! Otherwise, we close the only reasonable door to peace.”

Returning from Budapest last month, Francis sought to explain his efforts to keep dialogue open. “I believe that peace is always made by opening channels; peace can never be made by closure. I invite everyone to open relationships, channels of friendship. ... This is not easy,” he said. 

He said he had told this to various people, including Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, whom he met in Budapest and who is the only leader of the European Union’s 27 states who is an ally of President Putin. Mr. Orbán refuses to allow arms to be transported to Ukraine across the 85-mile border between the two countries, and claims that he and Francis are the only leaders working for peace.

How Francis communicates with Russia

While Francis has been able to communicate directly and indirectly with President Zelensky since the war started, the same is not true with President Putin, whom he has met face to face three times (2013, 2015, 2019). They last spoke together when Putin phoned to wish him 85th birthday greetings in Dec. 2021. Since then, Francis said, his main line of communication has been through the Russian ambassador to the Holy See, Aleksandr Avdeyev. On the flight from Budapest, he said: “I have a good relationship with the ambassador who is now leaving; he has been the ambassador in the Vatican for seven years, he is a great man, a man comme il faut , a serious, cultured, and balanced person. My relationship with the Russians is mainly with this ambassador.”

The pope has communicated with the Kremlin also through Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, who met the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 22, 2022. 

Moreover, the Vatican has a nuncio in Moscow, the Italian Archbishop Giovanni d’Aniello, who has been there throughout the war and is able to report back to Rome.

Besides the formal diplomatic channels, Francis also tries to make use of non-diplomatic ones to communicate with the Russian leadership, and especially Russian Orthodox church officials, even though most of them, like Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, are subservient to Putin. Only a small number of Orthodox priests have opposed the war and are reportedly now in prison. 

Besides the formal diplomatic channels, Francis also tries to make use of non-diplomatic ones to communicate with the Russian leadership.

On March 16, 2022, Francis had a 40-minute conversation by Zoom with Kirill. An outspoken supporter of the war, the patriarch sought to defend the “special military operation” but Francis called on him to be a pastor, not “the acolyte of the state.” The pope’s remark upset Kirill, according to informed sources; they have not spoken directly to each other since. They were scheduled to have a face-to-face meeting in Jerusalem in June 2021, but Francis canceled that because of the war.

Since their Zoom conversation, Francis has communicated with Kirill through the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, first Metropolitan Hilarion and, since June 2022, through his successor, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk. 

Anthony visited the pope in the Vatican on August 5, 2022, and discussed Orthodox-Catholic relations in the context “of political processes taking place in the world.” Soon after, he let it be known that Kirill would not attend the Congress of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan (Sept. 13-15) where Francis was scheduled to speak and where some had expected the patriarch and pope to have a face-to-face meeting. 

On the plane from Budapest, Francis affirmed that the meeting with the patriarch “will happen” but gave no indication as to when that might be. Vatican sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak, told America that Francis is unlikely to meet Kirill until the war has ended.

Vatican sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak, told America that Francis is unlikely to meet Kirill until the war has ended.

In Budapest, Pope Francis received Metropolitan Hilarion in a 20-minute private audience. Hilarion had been Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate from 2009 to 2022 when he was demoted and reassigned to Budapest in June 2022, allegedly for his opposition to the war. Hilarion was succeeded by Antony. Francis has known Hilarion since 2013, they have met many times and on the plane he said: “Hilarion is someone I respect very much, and we have always had a good relationship. And he was kind enough to come and see me [in Budapest], then he came to the Mass, and I saw him here at the airport as well. Hilarion is an intelligent person with whom one can talk, and these relationships need to be maintained, because if we talk about ecumenism—I like this, I don't like this—we must have an outstretched hand with everyone, even receive their hand.” 

Asked if he had talked about peace with Orbán and Hilarion, Francis said, in the meeting “We talked about all these things. We talked about this because everyone is interested in the road to peace. I am willing. I am willing to do whatever needs to be done. Also, there is a mission going on now, but it is not public yet. Let's see how....When it is public I will talk about it.”

Hilarion’s position is delicate, and in response to speculation in the media, he made clear on his website portal “there was nothing [at the meeting with Francis] concerning bilateral relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. No political issues were discussed. The meeting was of a personal nature between two old friends.”

After Francis’ return to the Vatican, Metropolitan Anthony arrived in Rome (May 1-4) “with Patriarch Kirill’s blessing.” His visit, however, was for private business that was in no way related to the pope’s peace mission, Vatican sources told America . He met Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches, and greeted Pope Francis for a few minutes at the end of the Wednesday public audience in St. Peter’s Square. He also visited Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity, whom he has known for many years, but did not meet Cardinal Kurt Koch, the prefect of the dicastery, who was in Israel at that time.

Anthony’s presence in Rome and his greeting the pope sparked inevitable speculation in the media that it was linked to the peace mission, but Cardinal Parolin categorically denied this on the day of the audience saying, “It had nothing to do with this!”

Russia and Ukraine knew about Francis’ peace initiative

At the same time, Cardinal Parolin expressed surprise that spokespersons for the presidents of Ukraine and Russia claimed ignorance of the pope’s peace mission. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters May 2 that Moscow had no information about the initiative. CNN reported that an unnamed Ukrainian official close to the presidential office said: “President Zelensky has not consented to any such discussions on Ukraine’s behalf. If talks are happening, they are happening without our knowledge or our blessing.”

”I know that both parties have been informed,” Cardinal Parolin said May 3 , “to my knowledge, they were and are aware.” He added, “As far as I know, they know.”

The cardinal’s next remark, however, appeared to suggest that the pope’s first aim is to get both sides to agree to a ceasefire, before the peace process could start. ”I don't know if there are the conditions today for a ceasefire. Let's hope.... I believe that this initiative—if there will be one—by the Vatican should also go in that direction,” the cardinal said. Vatican Media reported that the cardinal went on to add that the hope is that a cessation of fighting might take place and that a peace process could follow.

On May 4, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, offered a more nuanced response to his original denial: “We know that the Pope is constantly thinking about peace and how to end this conflict, but we are not aware of any detailed plan proposed by the Vatican.” 

“While Putin is not open to direct communication with the pope right now, the calculation here is that he may be more ready for this in some months’ if the war is not going his way.”

That both Russia and Ukraine would issue denials of a peace mission is to a certain degree comprehensible, as neither side wants to stop fighting at this moment. Ukraine wants to regain its lost territory before considering a peace plan and is about to launch a major military offensive to achieve that goal. Russia, for its part, wants to defend all the territory it has taken since 2014 and, if possible, make further gains. To say one is ready to discuss a ceasefire, much less a peace plan, would be equivalent to a sign of weakness on the Ukrainian part and would leave Russia in a stronger position since it holds Ukrainian territory. The Russians, too, do not want a ceasefire; they need to make further gains if they are to consolidate what they have already captured.

Sources told America that Francis wants to bring about a ceasefire as soon as possible, to stop the killing and destruction, before moving into the more problematic area of peace negotiations. One Vatican source said, “While Putin is not open to direct communication with the pope right now, the calculation here is that he may be more ready for this in some months if the war is not going his way.”

Some in Rome think Pope Francis may have in mind the all-out effort made by John Paul II in 2003 to prevent the war in Iraq. That year, the Polish pope sent the French Cardinal Roger Etchegeray to Baghdad to speak with Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader received him on February 15 and engaged in a conversation that appeared to offer a glimmer of hope for a last-minute way out of the crisis. Two weeks later, John Paul II dispatched the Italian Cardinal Pio Laghi, a friend of the Bush family, to Washington, D.C., to speak with President George W. Bush. When they met in the Oval Office on March 5, the cardinal handed Mr. Bush a personal letter from the pope, but the president put it on the table without opening it and went on to inform the cardinal that he believed he was “doing God’s will” by launching the war. President Bush’s mind was closed to mediation, and the negative consequences of his decision are still with us today, as Francis saw when he visited the country March 5-8, 2021.  

The situation facing Francis is, of course, totally different from the one that faced John Paul II 20 years ago. President Putin has already launched the war and today, more than 430 days later, shows no intention of ending it. Nor does he show any sign of being open to a ceasefire proposal from Francis any more than President Bush was to John Paul II’s effort to prevent the war. 

Pope Francis believes in the power of prayer, knowing that nothing is impossible for God. He believes “it is not impossible” for him to get to Moscow, as he told La Nación on March 10. He knows it is a steep, uphill task to get both sides to agree to a ceasefire, but he feels it is his moral duty to try, and also to seek to engage other heads of state and of international organizations in this effort.

Gerard O’Connell is America ’s Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History . He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.

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Vatican says pope has not accepted invitation to go to russia.

• March 21, 2024
• News & Commentary

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis has not accepted an invitation to travel to Moscow in June to meet with Vladimir Putin, the director of the Holy See press office said.

A report on the website of Intelligence Online, a French journal, “does not correspond to the truth,” Matteo Bruni told reporters March 20.

A story on the website March 19 had said Ivan Soltanovsky, the Russian ambassador to the Holy See, invited the pope to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow in June, “an invitation that the pope accepted,” Intelligence Online had reported.

The journal said the pope, who repeatedly has been invited to visit Ukraine, would travel to Kyiv immediately after visiting Moscow.

After Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Pope Francis said he would be willing to accept the invitation of the Ukrainian government to visit, but only if he could visit Moscow as well.

Earlier the Russian news agency RIA Novosti had reported that Pope Francis had congratulated Putin on his victory in the presidential election March 17, an election Western observers described as rigged. Bruni had told Catholic News Service March 18 that the report was not true.

The Vatican has repeatedly offered to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia, and last year Pope Francis sent his peace envoy for Ukraine, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and Beijing to meet with foreign leaders and advance peace talks on Ukraine.

In early March, however, the pope caused consternation when segments of an interview were released in which he said Russia and Ukraine need to have the “courage of the white flag” to halt the fighting and negotiate.

The phrase “white flag” usually refers to surrendering, and Ukrainian leaders were outraged.

Pope Francis was not asking Ukraine to consider surrendering to Russia when he called for negotiations to end the war, but he was calling for both Russia and Ukraine to cease hostilities and engage in peace talks, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.

At the end of his weekly general audience March 20, praying for peace in Ukraine and in the Holy Land, Pope Francis said, “War is always a defeat.”

“We must make every effort to discuss, to negotiate to end war,” he said. “Let’s pray for this.”

By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service

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Vatican defends pope's praise of 'great' Russian Empire after fury in Ukraine

The Vatican sought to defend Pope Francis on Tuesday after he sparked fury in Ukraine by praising Russia's imperial rulers — a history President Vladimir Putin has invoked to justify his ongoing war.

The Kremlin delighted in the controversy, which stemmed from comments the pontiff made to a group of young Russian Catholics urging them to see themselves as the heirs of a "great" empire.

"Don’t forget your heritage. You are the descendants of great Russia: the great Russia of saints, rulers, the great Russia of Peter I, Catherine II, that empire — educated, great culture and great humanity," he told them in St. Petersburg by live video Friday.

"Never give up on this heritage. You are descendants of the great Mother Russia, step forward with it. And thank you — thank you for your way of being, for your way of being Russian."

The pope gave a prepared speech to the event in his native Spanish before switching to Italian for this unscripted aside. The online transcript of the speech does not include these comments, video of which was shared widely online over the weekend.

The pope was strongly criticized by Ukrainian leaders, who said he was repeating Russian nationalist talking points that are used to justify the Kremlin's war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared himself to the expansionist Peter the Great and spoken of Ukraine being part of a historic, greater Russia.

"It is precisely with such imperialist propaganda, the 'spiritual ties' and the 'need' to save 'great Mother Russia' that the Kremlin justifies the killing of thousands of Ukrainians and the destruction of Ukrainian cities and villages," Oleg Nikolenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said on Facebook.

The head of Ukraine's Eastern Rite Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said in a statement that the pope's words had caused "great pain and worry" and feared they could "inspire the neo-colonial ambitions of the aggressor country."

Amid growing pressure, the Vatican said Tuesday that it was “clear” from the context of the pontiff’s comments that they were not designed to praise Russian imperialism.

“The Pope intended to encourage young people to preserve and promote what is positive in Russia’s great cultural and spiritual heritage, and certainly not to extol imperialistic logics and governmental personalities, cited to point to certain historical periods of reference,” spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

The pope has repeatedly criticized Russia's actions in Ukraine, describing the invaded country as "martyred" while calling for peace throughout the war.

But Francis' latest intervention was warmly received in the Kremlin.

"It is admirable that the pontiff knows Russian history," Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said in his daily press briefing Tuesday.

"It is deep and the legacy is very old, not restricted to Peter I. The entire society and schools work hard to hand over this to young people. The pontiff going along with this effort is really good and makes us glad," he said.

Putin has frequently mentioned Russia's long imperial past in speeches and essays, often in an attempt to justify his contemporary foreign policy goals.

In June last year, Putin compared himself to the 18th-century tsar, Peter the Great, who expanded his nation's borders by seizing Swedish land and several Baltic states, establishing Russia as a major European empire.

Drawing a parallel to his war in Ukraine, Putin said Peter did not take territories from Sweden and others but "returned" them to their natural place in the wider Russian Empire.

Catherine II, better known as Catherine the Great, annexed Crimea in 1783.

Days before his forces annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, Putin told an audience that "Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities," arguing that Russia and Ukraine were historically inseparable.

He returned to this theme in a lengthy article prior to his full-scale invasion in 2021, declaring that "Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe."

Ukrainians and many Western analysts have rejected this reading of history.

Olivia Durand, an expert in Russian colonial history and a visiting fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, told NBC News it was "regrettable" that the pope was repeating the language of great Russian chauvinism, a religious ideology with strong imperialist overtones which saw Moscow as the protector of the "true" Orthodox faith after the fall of the previous centers of Christianity.

"This speech is understandably an upsetting one for people in Ukraine and beyond — it feels tone deaf and unaware of the deeper history of religious politicization ... during the successive ages of Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the USSR and today’s Russian Federation," she said.

I cover early morning U.S. breaking news, everything from severe weather to crime. I'm based in London and have worked for American news outlets since 2013.

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On the road again: Pope to visit Asia, Oceania in September

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis’ trip to Asia and Oceania in September will be a trip of religious, economic and social contrasts.

Visiting four nations Sept. 2-13, the 87-year-old pope will be making the longest trip of his pontificate, both in terms of distance covered and days away from the Vatican.

The trip will include predominantly Muslim Indonesia and predominantly Christian Papua New Guinea, as well as Singapore, Asia’s economic powerhouse, and Timor-Leste, one of the world’s poorest nations.

Plans were being made for the trip in September 2020, but everything was halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pope Francis not only is four years older, but now regularly uses a cane, a walker or a wheelchair to get around.

The 45th trip of his pontificate is expected to focus heavily on interreligious dialogue, ethnic harmony, care for creation, concern for immigrants and gratitude for the work of missionaries and the church’s contribution to education and health care.

His visit will begin in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world; Catholics account for only about 3 percent of the population. Then he will move on to Papua New Guinea, where an estimated 98 percent of the population is Christian. Timor-Leste is the only nation on the itinerary where Catholics are the majority; the Vatican estimates 96 percent of the population belongs to the church. In Singapore, Buddhists make up the largest religious group — about 31 percent — followed by 20 percent of the population claiming no religious belief; Christians account for almost 19 percent of the population and Muslims about 15 percent.

While from a European or North American perspective all four countries could be considered part of the “periphery” of global Catholicism — those outlying areas Pope Francis prioritizes when accepting invitations — he will stick to the largest city in each nation, with one exception: He will spend about three hours Sept. 8 in Vanimo and Baro, towns on the northwesternmost shore of Papua New Guinea.

It’s personal, according to Father Giorgio Licini, a PIME missionary and general secretary of the Papua New Guinea bishops’ conference.

Writing in Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Father Licini said Pope Francis insisted on going to the outposts over the advice of the bishops’ conference and the government because he wanted to visit his friend, Father Martin Prado, a 35-year-old member of the Institute of the Incarnate Word from Argentina, and see the work he and the Incarnate Word sisters have been doing in the remote area.

But Indonesia is the first stop, and interreligious dialogue and “human fraternity” are expected to be the dominant topics.

Divine Word Father Markus Solo Kewuta, an Indonesian official at the Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, said generally Christian-Muslim relations in his homeland are “very peaceful, very kind,” but they can vary in different parts of the country, a nation made up of more than 17,000 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited.

The country’s main Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and the Indonesian government both promote official dialogue, peaceful coexistence and simple neighborliness, Father Solo said, but there is a worrying new trend of “ghetto building,” or of people looking to live in neighborhoods where only Muslims or Christians live, which decreases mutual knowledge, trust and cooperation.

The priest, who grew up on the predominantly Catholic island of Flores, told Catholic News Service it still is common for members of the Nahdlatul Ulama youth group to volunteer to stand guard outside their neighborhood Christian churches on Christmas Eve and during the Easter vigil to ensure the services take place in peace.

“Unfortunately, these good relations will be always disturbed by the radical or violent acts of people, and particularly also by the politicization of religion,” he said. “This really divides nations, societies and religions; friends become enemies. We have experienced this in the past several times.”

“We live in a plurality, and therefore we are condemned to dialogue with each other,” he said.

In Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste, Pope Francis also is expected to talk about the religious obligation to care for creation. All three nations have seen accelerating deforestation as the global market seeks tropical wood, and all three struggle to regulate mining while relying on profits from mineral exports.

Pope Francis will not be the first pope to visit any of the countries on his itinerary. St. Paul VI visited Indonesia in 1970 and St. John Paul II went to the country in 1989; on the same trip, St. John Paul visited Timor-Leste, which celebrated its independence from Indonesia in 2002. The Polish pope visited Papua New Guinea in 1984 and again in 1995. In 1986, St. John Paul visited Singapore, though he stayed only five hours — enough time to celebrate a public Mass, meet government officials and speak to the nation’s priests.

Singapore is one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and Pope Francis’ 46-hour visit will include time with some of the island’s poorer residents — the elderly and sick people cared for at St. Theresa’s Home, a nursing home that can serve up to 200 patients.

A 2014 Pew Research Center report ranked Singapore as the most religiously diverse country in the world, but also found a significant percentage of the population claims no religious affiliation at all. Pope Francis’ final event in Singapore, before his 12-hour flight back to Rome, will be an interreligious meeting with young people, bringing the theme full circle.

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