When King Charles III and his wife, Queen Consort Camila, are crowned on Saturday, the event will mark a historic juncture in Catholic-Anglican relations, as it will be the first time a Catholic bishop has participated in the ceremony in four centuries.

In a May 5 statement, the Archdiocese of Westminster in the UK, overseen by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, called Saturday’s coronation “an historic occasion for the nation, and also for the Catholic community.”

“For the first time in over 400 years, a Catholic Archbishop will take part in a Coronation in this country,” the statement said, referring to the fact that Nichols has not only been invited to attend the ceremony, but he will also give a blessing.
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In a new interview with a German newspaper, the Vatican’s point man on ecumenical affairs says Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill’s defense of the war in Ukraine amounts to “heresy,” and has fractured the unity of the Orthodox community.

Speaking to German newspaper Würzburg Die Tagespost in an interview that was published Wednesday, June 29, Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that in his opinion, “it is heresy that the patriarch dares to legitimize the brutal and absurd war in Ukraine for pseudo-religious reasons.”

He noted that Kirill in the past has not only defended the war as a protection of Russian security and interests, but he has implied that Russians and Ukrainians share a national unity given the baptism of Grand Duke Vladimir of Kievan Rus’ in 988, after which he declared Christianity the state religion.

In Koch’s view, this vision of unity “is cruelly refuted today: if Russians and Ukrainians emerged from the same baptismal bath, but the Russians today attack the Ukrainians and wage war, then the unity is denied.”
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