As the war in Ukraine continues, a senior Vatican diplomat arrived in Moscow on Monday.
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the second-highest ranking figure in the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, is in Moscow for a a five-day visit that will include high-level talks with both political and religious figures, as well as a meeting with the small Catholic community in the Russian capital.
Gallagher’s official title is Secretary of State for Relations with States and International Organizations. The prelate’s office is functionally analogous to that of a foreign minister.
A Kremlin spokesperson said there is no scheduled meeting between Gallagher and Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Gallagher is set to meet Tuesday with his counterpart, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
Military spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Tuesday’s meeting with Lavrov “will include an exchange of views on the current state and prospects of bilateral cooperation between Russia and the Vatican, as well as interaction at multilateral forums.”
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is expected to loom large over the meeting.
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Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV renewed his appeal for an end to the conflict, saying he stands “with the families of the victims, the injured, and all those suffering,” and called on belligerents to respect “humanitarian law and for both sides to cease attacks on civilian targets.”
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“War only begets more war and causes enormous suffering,” the pontiff said.
“It is time to halt the spiral of violence,” the pope said, “and make room for diplomacy and dialogue to pave the way for peace.”
In an interview with Crux Now last year, the pontiff noted the “great efforts” the Vatican’s institutional diplomats have made “to maintain a position that, as difficult as it might be, [is not] one side or the other, but truly neutral.”
The Holy See has also made efforts to approach the belligerents, but Leo acknowledged the difficulties and limits of Holy See diplomacy.
“I’d make a distinction in terms of the voice of the Holy See in advocating for peace and a role as mediator, which I think is very different and is not as realistic as the first one,” he said.
“I think that people have heard the different appeals I’ve made, Leo said, “in terms of raising my voice, the voice of Christians, and the people of goodwill, saying that peace is the only answer.”
“To think of the Vatican as a mediator,” however, “even the couple of times that we have offered to host meetings of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, either in the Vatican or some other church property,” is another matter, he said.
“I’m very well aware of what the implications of that are,” Leo said.
Russia’s Lavrov on prospects for negotiation
On Saturday, Lavrov rejected the idea of negotiating with Western countries and said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his allies were “being weaponized and incited against Russia.”
“All Western countries that declared a war on us with the hands and bodies of the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv have hoped for many years that we will approach them to negotiate,” he said. “We will not. There is no one to negotiate with in today’s Europe.”
Gallagher’s last in-person meeting with Lavrov was in November 2021, three months before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Last April, the pair spoke on a call about the “humanitarian sphere” of the war.
In a conversation with EWTN News earlier this month, Russian Ambassador to the Holy See Ivan Soltanovsky said Gallagher’s trip would be “an opportunity to deliver directly on the part of our higher officials the position on many issues.”
Last year, Russia rejected the idea of peace talks being held between Russia and Ukraine at the Vatican.
An important date for Ukraine
Gallagher’s arrival in Moscow today coincides with the anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, a day Ukrainian religious leaders have asked to be marked with prayers for peace, with the war between Russia and Ukraine now having been going on for approximately four and a half years.
In a statement earlier this month, the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations (UCCRO) asked “religious leaders, clergy, religious communities and believers around the world” for “spiritual solidarity – support though prayer, compassion and fraternal participation.”
Gallagher met representatives from the UCCRO during a visit to Ukraine in July.
“We believe that united prayer can bring peoples together, strengthen faith, support those who suffer and serve as a powerful testimony to God’s love and human solidarity,” UCCRO also said in their statement.
Ecclesiastical relations
Also on Tuesday, Gallagher is to meet Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.
On Wednesday, Gallagher will meet Yuri Ushakov, Aide to the President of the Russian Federation for Foreign Policy.
On Thursday, Gallagher will have the opportunity to meet the Catholic community in Moscow.
There are widely differing estimates of the number of Catholics in Russia, all of them significantly under 1 million, in a country with a total population of roughly 145 million.
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