Vatican City, Jan 21, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, Holy See Press Office director announced today that Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, will go to Moscow on February 16.
The Cardinal is responding to an invitation of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of the Russian Federation.
During his visit, which will end February 20, Cardinal Kasper will meet with the Catholic bishops present in the Russian Federation and the Catholic community in Moscow.
The statement also says that “during this visit, motivated by feelings of esteem for the Russian Orthodox Church, Cardinal Kasper will be received in audience by His Holiness Alexei II, patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias, and will have talks with Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, and with the president of the department for foreign ecclesiastical relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow, in view of the ecumenical dialogue between the two Churches.”
Cardinal Kasper will travel accompanied by Bishop Brian Farrell, Secretary of the pontifical council, and by Fr. Jozef M. Maj, an official in the council’s Oriental Section.