"In 2005, Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, chairman of the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions, told the 6th Gniezno Convention that the metaphor is "particularly relevant" when he "proposed to form a European Catholic-Orthodox Alliance" and said "nothing should prevent us from uniting our efforts in order to defend Christian tradition, without waiting for the restoration of full unity between the two lungs of European Christianity."