The Archbishop of Canterbury is visiting Moscow today for a three-day trip including meetings with senior Russian politicians and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close ally to President Vladimir Putin.
Justin Welby is expected to visit the Anglican Church of St Andrew's, Moscow, and introduce its new chaplain, Revd Malcolm Rogers, who was installed in September to Patriarch Kirill personally.
The trip mirrors one made by Patriarch Kirill to London in 2016 where he visited Lambeth Palace, Buckingham Palace and sent his foreign secretary Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev to meet foreign office minister Baroness Anelay.
Welby will meet the same Metropolitan Hilarion as well as 'senior Russian political figures', according to a statement on the Archbishop's website. Lambeth Palace said it could not elaborate on which politicians Welby will meet.
He will also address guests at the residence of the British Ambassador to Russia.
The visit may raise eyebrows coming days after Theresa May accused Russia of meddling with elections and planting fake stories in the media.
In an extraordinary attack on Moscow's attempts to 'weaponise information' in order to sow discord in the west, May said Putin's government was 'threatening the international order on which we all depend'.
When Patriarch Kirill came to London last year, he hinted Church figures could be used as back channels for diplomatic conversations.
'When at the beginning of the eighteenth century diplomatic relations between the two countries [Russia and Britain] were broken off, the rector of our church here in London carried out a state and diplomatic mission. And this would happen every time when relations between the two countries became difficult,' he said in a sermon.
It is convention for the Archbishop to meet with senior political figures on foreign trips.
