Metropolitan Kirill on a trip to Cuba

METROPOLITAN KIRILL ON A TRIP TO CUBA

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, was on a working trip to the Republic of Cuba from July 24 to 29, 1998. The purpose of his trip was to explore the local situation and conditions with the view of possible opening of a Russian Orthodox parish to comply with requests coming from the numerous Russian Orthodox community in the country.

Upon his arrival in Havana on July 24, Metropolitan Kirill met with some staff members of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Cuba. They told him about the culture and traditions of the island, the life of Russian citizens there, their urgent spiritual needs and the need for pastoral care of the Orthodox Russians.

On July 25, the DECR chairman laid a wreath at the memorial to Soviet soldiers in Havana and visited the museum house of Ernst Hemingway at La Vihia estate where the famous writer spent over twenty years of his life. In the afternoon, Metropolitan Kirill met with the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana. The cardinal spoke at length about the Catholic life in Cuba and the visit made by Pope John Paul II to the island last January. They also discussed some problems of religious and cultural life and implementation of human rights.

On July 27, Metropolitan Kirill conducted a thanksgiving with the blessing of water at a specially equipped room at the Russian Embassy and afterwards had a long and constructive talk with activists of the Russian community concerning the opening of a parish in Havana.

The total number of Orthodox Russians living in the island is about 14.000 people. Most of them are whose who came from the former USSR and settled in Cuba as a result of mixed marriages and staff members of the Russian diplomatic institutions and business representations. The community assembles for common prayer during major church feasts. Due to the lack of a priest, they themselves read Holy Scriptures, carry out charitable work and help the sick and the old. They long for a priest of Russian descent so that they could worship according to the Orthodox tradition they have been accustomed to and in their mother tongue. There was a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in Cuba between 1961-1975, which had at its disposal the Church of Sts Constantine and Helen. At present the church is closed to house a theatrical studio.

During the rests of his days in Cuba, Metropolitan Kirill had a number of meetings with Cuban Government and state officials. He met, in particular, with the minister of foreign trade R. Cabrisaz, deputy foreign minister I. Aliende, deputy minister for foreign investments M. Lomaz, and vice-president of the Institute of Friendship with Other Nations, R. Rodrigez Gonsalez.