Now that the Patriarch’s meeting in Cuba is over, we can begin to look at the deeper significance of the encounter and look ahead beyond the minor details to the big picture.

Firstly, it took place at an airport, on neutral territory.

Secondly, the Havana Declaration was signed in front of an icon of the Kazan Mother of God, which is associated with the expulsion from Moscow of the Catholic Poles 400 years ago.

Thirdly, it was signed by ‘Francis, Bishop of Rome, Pope of the Catholic Church’, not by someone pretentiously claiming universal authority.

Fourthly, the agreement is unanimous in its condemnation of liberal Western values, with their consumerism and exploitation, which are ruining the world environmentally, politically, economically and socially.

Fifthly, with this Declaration the much weakened and humiliated traditional West, in the form of the Vatican, is today in fact asking Russia for help. The Church has gained an ally in Roman Catholicism in defending traditional values.

Sixthly, there is the significance that this meeting took place in Cuba, the location of the largest Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Latin America. This symbolizes the universality of the Orthodox world, in particular of the Russian Orthodox world, on today’s planet.

Finally, given that about one fifth (not one half, as Roman Catholic journalists absurdly claim!) of Russian Orthodox live in what is called ‘the Ukraine’, as we predicted, the Uniats in the Ukraine (living mainly in a small area which formerly belonged to Poland) are very disappointed. According to the Havana Declaration they are more or less destined to die out as a grievous mistake in the dustbin of history.

There is more than this, however. Cuba is where in 1962 US aggression almost started the Third World War and avoided doing so only by removing its missiles that it had deliberately and threateningly sited by the Russian border in Turkey, at which point the Soviet Union removed its response from Cuba. And today we see another and similar risk of a Third World War, beginning only a hundred miles or so from the Holy Land and Armageddon, in Syria. Here US-controlled and NATO Turkey, having already illegally shot down a Russian plane and committing genocide against the Kurds, is now invading. The other US ally, that well-known beacon of freedom, democracy and multiple beheadings, Saudi Arabia, is threatening the same, having been routed in the Yemen and miserably failed to bankrupt Russia by drastically lowering the oil price.

The Western-founded and -trained and Saudi-and Qatari-financed Islamic State organization is facing rout at the hands of Syria and Russia. The latter are successfully defending Aleppo and are freeing areas of Syria from terrorist control. Of course, the Western State media have, on orders from their masters, gone berserk, relaying anti-Russian propaganda on behalf of the terrorists. Apparently the Russians are bombing hospitals and killing children – exactly what the USA did in Afghanistan last year. Once again the Western propaganda machine is talking about itself and imputing to others its own crimes. This reflects the equally nonsensical propaganda spouting forth from the bankrupt Galician Uniats and sectarians whom the US put in control of Kiev two years ago and the hysteria that NATO hawks are self-justifyingly whipping up in the Baltics about some mythical Russian invasion.

Beyond all this, there is even deeper significance. This year two events are due to occur in the Church: the first event is this February’s meeting between the de facto leader of the Church and the head of Roman Catholicism that has already taken place on the island of Cuba. The second event is the meeting due to occur in June on another island – Crete. That meeting was supposed to have taken place in Turkey in premises no doubt bugged by the CIA and taking place according to the agenda of its puppets. If the meeting does take place, it will now take place in different, bug-free premises and according to an agenda very different from the humanist one, redolent of the 1960s, that had been set by powers alien to the Church.

It is now clear that the meeting in Cuba, decided last September and with its pre-arranged Havana Statement, has in fact been preparatory to the Crete meeting. There is now no longer any ambiguity as to who leads the Church on earth and who will in fact lead the meeting in Crete. And so it is equally clear that the US-appointed clericalists on the fringes of the Church will not be even setting the agenda at the meeting in Crete, let alone taking decisions. The Church is awake and we the people are now having our say.