Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Pope Francis’ emissary for peace in Ukraine, will visit Moscow on Wednesday, the Vatican announced, three weeks after his visit to Kyiv, News.ro reported with reference to AFP.

This is the first visit to Moscow by a representative of the Holy See after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

“On June 28 and 29, 2023, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, accompanied by a representative of the State Secretariat, will visit Moscow as an envoy of Pope Francis,” he announced on Tuesday in a statement from Sfrntul Coun.

“The goal of the initiative is to encourage humanitarian gestures that can help solve the current tragic situation and find means to achieve a just peace,” the message reads.

Cardinal Zuppi, who comes from the community of Sant’Egidio, which acts as an unofficial diplomatic channel of the Holy See, visited Kyiv on June 5 and 6.

During that “short but intense” visit, according to the Vatican, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi told him that the truce “will not lead to peace.”

Despite Pope Francis’ repeated calls for a ceasefire every week since the beginning of the conflict, the Holy See’s initiatives to establish contact with the Russian authorities have so far failed.

The 67-year-old Archbishop of Bologna, Matteo Zuppi, has been the head of the Italian Episcopal Conference since last year.

He was made a cardinal of the community of Sant’Egidio.

Founded in 1968, this Catholic lay community, which now specializes in diplomacy and peace efforts, had as its original mission to help the poor and marginalized.

She appeared on the international scene during the signing of the peace agreement in Mozambique in 1992, in which members of the community of Sant’Egidio, including Monsignor Zuppi, played a leading role. (News.ro)