“The text of the declaration was negotiated by the sides until late last night. The final amendments were introduced. It is necessary to hope now that the document in its agreed-upon version will be submitted to the meeting of the patriarch and the pope,” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, told reporters at the Vnukovo airport on Thursday, before accompanying Patriarch Kirill on his flight to Cuba.
Changes may be introduced into the text of this document in the course of the meeting itself, he said, declining, however, to disclose its contents.
