Abp Gallagher in Moscow: dialogue resumes, tradition measures the peace

The Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, travels to Moscow from 24 to 28 August 2026. On Tuesday 25 August he is due to meet the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov: these are the first direct high-level contacts between the head of the Holy See's diplomacy and the government of the Russian Federation in nearly five years.

The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the meeting, indicating that the talks will address the state and prospects of relations between Russia and the Holy See, cooperation within international organizations, and international questions of common interest. The programme also provides for meetings with representatives of the Patriarchate of Moscow and with the local Catholic community, a minority scattered across a vast territory. No meeting with President Vladimir Putin has been announced, and the known programme indicates no concrete mediation initiative.

Archbishop Gallagher's last visit to Moscow dates from November 2021; he then met Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the same Sergei Lavrov, and Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, whose department for the external church relations of the Patriarchate has been led since 2022 by Metropolitan Antonij. During his stay, Archbishop Gallagher will also preside at a Eucharistic celebration and meet bishops, clergy, and religious.

Peace is measured by justice and by order

The diplomacy that seeks to spare blood and to open a path between peoples at war belongs by full right to the mission of the Church; we do not dispute it. But tradition knows only one peace: the peace that rests on justice and on order. Saint Augustine defines it in a word: peace is "the tranquillity of order." And Scripture gives its root: "opus iustitiae pax," and the work of justice shall be peace (Isaiah 32:17). True peace is therefore not the absence of tension nor the mere resumption of contact; it is the fruit of justice rendered and, at its term, of the reign of Christ over the nations. A dialogue is measured by that, not by its mere existence.

One Church only, and the return of the dissidents

The meeting with the Patriarchate of Moscow touches a graver point still. The Russian Orthodox Church is a body separated from the See of Peter, and tradition knows no two Churches that would dialogue as equals. There is but one Church of Christ, the one that Peter governs, and the unity of Christians is not achieved by a federation of confessions, but by the return of the dissidents to the one fold. Pius XI taught it without evasion in Mortalium animos (1928): true union is obtained only by the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ, which they once left. The Lord Himself promised only that "there shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16).

The measure

By this standard the visit lets itself be judged calmly. Insofar as it seeks peace and comes to sustain a Catholic flock scattered across an immense territory, it serves the perpetual mission of the Church, and we say so without reserve. But two things the standard requires must remain in view. First, a resumption of relations is not yet a work of peace: the known programme carries, at this stage, no concrete initiative; it is an expectation, not a result, and it must be named as such.

Second, the ecumenical conversation cannot amount to the recognition of two equal Churches: the only unity the faith awaits remains the return of the separated brethren to the Roman Church. A dialogue that forgot this would cease to serve the one end for which it exists, the salvation of souls in the true Church.

What to take from it

The faithful formed in the tradition has therefore neither to be alarmed nor to rejoice in advance. That a channel reopens to spare lives is good; that we pray for true peace and for the return of the East to Catholic unity is better still. Let us hold the faith as the Church has always taught it, and entrust to the Immaculate the conversion of the peoples that no diplomacy can obtain alone.

Sources. Saint Augustine, The City of God, Book XIX ("peace is the tranquillity of order"); Isaiah 32:17 and Saint John 10:16, according to the Vulgate (Douay-Rheims); Pius XI, encyclical Mortalium animos (1928), on the true unity of Christians; Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the article "the Catholic Church" of the Creed.