The Russian Orthodox Church said Wednesday it was ready for a new meeting between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis after weeks of diplomatic tensions sparked by the Ukraine war.

The news came after the Pope opened an interfaith meeting in former Soviet Kazakhstan, at which he criticized the manipulation of the faith for political ends.

The meeting is attended by about 100 delegations from 50 countries, but Putin’s close ally, Patriarch Kirill, is a notable absentee.

The pope has previously called for peace and denounced a “cruel and senseless war,” but Kirill has staunchly defended Putin’s operation.

After opening the meeting in the capital, Nur-Sultan, the pope spoke for about 15 minutes with Kirill’s “foreign minister”, Metropolitan Antony of Volokolamsk.

Anthony said a meeting between the two popes was “a possibility” provided it was “well prepared”.

“We have to see when, where (that would happen) and the most important thing is that we want something concrete to come out of the meeting, like the joint call we had in Havana,” he told journalists, referring to a historic meeting between Francis and Kirill in Cuba in 2016 – the first since the schism in the Christian Church in 1054.

Anthony said the pope himself considered a meeting “necessary” and regretted that a meeting scheduled for June in Jerusalem had been canceled “by the Holy See”.

“We were ready for this meeting, but it was canceled by the Holy See,” according to Pope Francis’ announcement in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

“This interview was really unexpected, this kind of statement clearly does not strengthen unity among Christians, we were surprised,” Anthony said.

“But we must move forward, it is important that the two religious leaders walk this path so that we Christians can help the people.”

Pope Francis warned Wednesday that faith should not be manipulated to defend conflict or bolster power in a remark that was applauded.

“May we never justify violence. May we never allow the sacred to be exploited by the profane. The sacred must never be a pillar of power, nor power a pillar of the sacred,” he said.

“Let us rid ourselves of those reductive and destructive ideas that insult the name of God through harshness, extremism and forms of fundamentalism and desecrate it through hatred, fanaticism and terrorism,” he said.

“Our time (is) still plagued by the scourge of war,” Francis said.

“A leap forward is required and it has to come from us,” he said, without naming the Ukraine war specifically.

A message from Kirill, published on the Orthodox Church’s website and sent to those attending the meeting, said that “we have witnessed distortions of historical facts and unprecedented manipulations of mass consciousness.”

“More than ever, people are finding it difficult to navigate the flow of information, resist ideological indoctrination, and maintain a sober mind and peace of mind,” Kirill said.

Russia presents itself as the target of anti-Russian campaigns it says are being waged by “the collective West” to try to prop up waning influence.

The 85-year-old Argentine pope, who is forced to use a wheelchair due to knee pain, arrived in Nur-Sultan on Tuesday for his 38th trip abroad since he took office in 2013.

He is the second Pope to visit Kazakhstan after John Paul II’s trip in September 2001.

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb and representatives of many different faiths and international organizations also attend the meetings.