The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organisations—i.e., the Vatican’s foreign minister—will make a working visit to Russia August 24-28, and will hold talks with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on August 25. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave the dates at her Aug. 20 briefing.
The agenda, as Moscow states it, is “an exchange of views on the current state and future of Russia’s cooperation with the Vatican, as well as their interaction on international platforms,” together with “the latest international developments of mutual interest.”
While the dates have shifted over time, the meeting is now publicly on the record from both sides.
It will be the first visit to Russia by the Holy See’s foreign minister since February 2022, and Gallagher’s second—he was in Moscow in November 2021, meeting Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Lavrov. The last Vatican envoy to make the trip was Cardinal Matteo Zuppi in June 2023.
On Aug. 19 an open letter was released asking Pope Leo XIV to convene an emergency summit of the world’s leaders, “including the heads of state of the three principal nuclear powers.” Six days later his foreign minister will be across a table from the foreign minister of one of them.
