Picture shows Patriarch Alexy, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church greeting Cardinal Kasper, President of the Council for Christian Unity.
Discussions on a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox have been taking place in Rome and Moscow, the most senior Irishman at the Vatican has said.
Bishop Brian Farrell, who is from Dublin, said a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Alexius II would most likely take place at a neutral venue. Secretary of the Vatican's Council for Promoting Christian Unity, he said relations between the two churches had 'improved enormously' under this papacy.
A 'small, mixed commission' had been set up by the churches to address difficulties. There were also problems in western Ukraine where Catholic clergy favoured independence and Russian Orthodox clergy were divided between allegiance to Moscow and to independence.
'We in Ireland should be able to understand that,' he said.
Bishop Farrell said discussion on inter-church communion was 'rather mute at the moment.'
Gestures, such as took place at Drogheda last Easter 'don't help' he said. There, three Augustinian priests and a Church of Ireland priest celebrated Mass together.
'The Eucharist belongs to the Church, not any individual,' he said.
He quoted Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who said a full sense of communion would take place when at the end of the Eucharistic prayer all present could be expected to say 'amen' to the same thing.
Bishop Farrell was in Dublin to deliver a homily on Thursday night at the inaugural service of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which took place at the Romanian Orthodox Church in Dublin's Leeson Park.