CWN - The chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations delivered an address in Fribourg, Switzerland, to mark the first anniversary of Pope Francis’s historic meeting with Patriarch Kirill in Havana.

After discussing the significance of the meeting and reviewing ecumenical developments of the past year, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk had strong words for Eastern Catholics, especially leaders of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

“It is impossible to establish peace if the Orthodox and the Greek Catholics do not combine their efforts to overcome the historical enmity,” Metropolitan Hilarion said. “Over and over again, despite the agreements reached at a high level between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches at a heavy cost, the Unia still makes its presence felt, sowing enmity and hatred and putting, systematically and persistently, obstacles in the way of reconciliation between the East and the West.”

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