The Kremlin is unenthusiastic about President Donald Trump’s proposal for the Vatican to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump proposed in a Monday statement on social media that Pope Leo XIV host delegations in Vatican City and play a mediating role in establishing a ceasefire.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Kremlin officials “don’t have any ideas right now” about where to meet with Ukrainian counterparts, but shot down the idea of the Vatican.
The minister specifically framed it as a religious issue, noting that Russia and Ukraine are Orthodox countries.
“But imagine the Vatican as a venue for negotiations. It would be a bit inelegant for Orthodox countries to use a Catholic platform to discuss issues on how to remove the root causes [of the conflict],” said Lavrov.
He speculated that the religious differences complicate the process and even implied it would be uncomfortable for the host.
“I do not think it would suit the Vatican itself to host delegations from two Orthodox countries in these circumstances,” he said.
If Russia believes the Holy See is uncomfortable with the prospect of hosting the warring Orthodox countries within its walls, their Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni confirmed earlier this week that Pope Leo XIV told her in a phone call that he was “always ready” to take on the responsibility. This possibility was among several “cool ideas” conveyed in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday.
Zelensky has repeatedly affirmed that he would be willing to meet anytime, anywhere with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
His willingness to use the Vatican as a platform for diplomacy was made clear when he met with Trump on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral to discuss peace efforts.
“Ukraine is ready, and it is essential to ensure that Russia is prepared to truly end the war,” he said on Tuesday.
The idea that Orthodox Christianity, in particular the Russian Orthodox Church, could be a stumbling block to Holy See-Russia relations is not a new proposition.
The optics of a Russian leader flying to Rome to broker peace under the guidance of the Holy See would be deeply damaging to the image of the Russian Orthodox Church, which operates hand-in-hand with the Kremlin as a fount of religious legitimacy.
For over a decade, the secular government’s bilateral diplomacy with the pope has been treated as separate from ecumenism efforts between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy See.
Putin visited Pope Francis in 2013, 2015, and 2019, saying after his last visit that they had a “very substantive, interesting discussion.”
Moscow Patriarch Kirill, the highest authority in the Russian Orthodox Church, met with Pope Francis in 2019 during a trip to Cuba. The meeting was the first time the head of the Catholic Church and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church had been together since the East-West Schism in 1054.
However, the meeting hardly quelled tensions between the two churches.
Pope Francis was an unabashed critic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and repeatedly spoke out against Kirill’s close relationship with the Kremlin.
Kirill encouraged Russian Christians to take up arms and join the military effort, declaring it a “holy war” that has the potential to wash away the sins of soldiers who die fighting for the cause.
Pope Francis rebuked Kirill for putting state above religion and told the patriarch that he “cannot become Putin’s altar boy.”
The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is also a vocal critic of the Russian government, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Kirill.
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“We are brothers, and we talk straight to each other. We do not dance the minuet,” Pope Francis once told reporters of his relationship with Kirill.
The Moscow patriarch’s relationship with Pope Leo XIV is still in early development, just weeks after the latter’s election. What ecumenical efforts can be expected to remain unclear, but Kirill did send the new pope a congratulatory letter following his election that seemed to signal an openness to peace.
“You are beginning your ministry as the head of the Roman Catholic Church at a particularly historic moment, marked by a series of cultural challenges as well as certain signs of hope,” Kirill told the pope. “In this context, the relationship between the Christian East and West holds special significance for the fate of the world.”
If the Vatican is ruled out as a mediator for Russia-Ukraine peace talks, several other venues, such as Turkey and Switzerland, remain on the table.