The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, will not attend a religious congress in Kazakhstan next week where he was expected to meet with Pope Francis.
Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida told TASS on September 5 that Kirill will skip the event due to "a number of reasons."
According to Legoida, the Russian Orthodox Church's delegation will attend the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions scheduled to be held on September 13-15 in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan.
In early August, the Vatican said that Francis would visit the gathering.
Francis has said that he hoped to meet with the Russian patriarch at the event.
Since the beginning of Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Kirill has made a number of statements in solidarity with the policy of the Russian authorities, prompting Francis to warn the patriarch against becoming President Vladimir Putin's "altar boy."
More than 150 Russian Orthodox clerics called for a stop to the war in an open letter on March 1. Kirill was not among those who signed it.
