Historical explanation Pope and Patriarch off

moscow - The leaders of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, has already drafted a joint statement of their historic meeting Friday. The church authorities in Moscow reported Thursday. There has to work late into the evening on Wednesday.

The Pope and Patriarch meet Friday at the airport in the Cuban capital Havana. It will be the first meeting of the leaders of the two churches in a thousand years.

Since the collapse of the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century AD, the Christian church grew in the western part and in the east greatly. In 1054 was the final break; this church divorce is called the schism.

Oriental stream now consists of a series of Eastern Orthodox churches. The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of them. More than half of the estimated 250 to 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, Russian Orthodox.