An increasingly belligerent Vladimir Putin is finding a new friend in a man of peace: Pope Francis.The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is scheduled to fly to Moscow on August 20 to meet the Russian president and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The four-day visit — the first of its kind since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 — is another step in a deepening relationship that began in September 2013, when Francis wrote an open letter to Putin, who was chairing the G20, to express his opposition to a U.S. military intervention in Syria.

In that letter, “the Pope asked Putin to pray for him, and it seems this line touched Putin,” said Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Rome-based Sant’Egidio community, a humanitarian organization that sometimes serves as an unofficial arm of Vatican diplomacy.

The request — unusual for a diplomatic letter — was a recognition of the Christian identity Putin has assiduously cultivated. Putin no doubt also appreciated the Pope’s message given that the Kremlin was one of the more vocal critics of U.S. military action in Syria.

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14.8.2017