NPR interview: Pope Francis in CubaUpdated February 12, 20168:38 AM ETPublished February 12, 20164:50 AM ET
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While Friday's meeting in Havana is the first between a pope and a Russian patriarch, Francis invited the patriarch of Constantinople to his installation as pope in 2013. The patriarch accepted the invitation. Though small, the Patriarchate of Constantinople is generally seen as the cradle of Orthodoxy and therefore has historical and symbolic importance.
"That [2013 occasion] was hugely historic," Roeber says, "because that had never happened. I would not quite place the meeting in Havana on quite that level of significance." But, he says, it matters because it may "indicate a Russian willingness to try to integrate themselves more into these ongoing discussions between Rome and the rest of Orthodoxy."
Gonzalez, who is Cuban-American, believes the choice of Havana as a meeting site was no accident. "This meeting could not have happened in Western Europe," he says. "It could not have happened in Russia. It could not have happened even elsewhere in Latin America, which is mostly seen as Catholic. Cuba is a relatively neutral place."
Whether the encounter turns out to be truly historic, however, depends on what is actually achieved, Gonzalez says. "Something can only be considered historic after it becomes history," he says.
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