“The head of the Holy See speaks about a possible meeting with Kirill in September in Kazakhstan,” Andrii Yurash, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See, said after Pope Francis confirmed the meeting will take place.

“But we diplomats are doing everything possible to prevent the meeting from taking place: it will neither benefit the ecumenical dialogue nor add authority to the Apostolic capital [See], because we are talking about a meeting with the devil’s advocate,” Yurash commented.