00 20/05/2006 17:08
From Interfax after the pope's meeting with Metropolitan Krill of Russia.


"I have been considerably impressed during my meetings with Professor Ratzinger, Cardinal Ratzinger, and then Pope Benedict XVI by what I can formulate as discipline of thought and discipline of the word," Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, told a news conference at the Russian Embassy in Rome.

"The pope is a completely independent and very powerful theologian," Kirill said.