Paul Richard Gallagher, Archbishop and the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow today, Tuesday 25 August 2026. Their talks focused on a number of issues of mutual interest and major international questions, with particular attention to the war in Ukraine and the prospects for launching negotiations towards peace.
The meeting is part of a four-day visit, from 24 to 28 August, during which the English prelate is holding a series of meetings in the Russian capital with Russian officials, representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and the local Catholic community.
The programme includes a second political meeting on Wednesday 26 August with Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser. The meeting will bring the Holy See’s diplomacy into direct talks with one of the figures closest to the Kremlin on international affairs.
The visit also has an ecclesial dimension. Gallagher is due to meet Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, who has headed the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations since 2022, as well as the bishops and the Catholic community in the Russian Federation.
This is not Gallagher’s first visit to Moscow. His previous trip was in November 2021, when he met Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Lavrov himself and Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, who at the time headed the Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations - a position held by Metropolitan Anthony since 2022.
The channel between the Holy See and Moscow has never completely closed. Gallagher and Lavrov had already spoken by telephone to discuss the war and efforts to bring the fighting to an end, while Cardinal Pietro Parolin met the Russian Foreign Minister on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. On that occasion, Lavrov stressed what he described as the geopolitical causes of the crisis, blaming them on what he called a systematically hostile Western policy towards Moscow.
The Moscow visit comes around a month after Gallagher’s mission to Ukraine, where the prelate met President Volodymyr Zelensky and visited several places hit by Russian attacks. The two visits, first to Kyiv and now to Moscow, keep both channels open in the midst of the conflict.
