The dialogue process is slow but constant. Another piece was added to the puzzle of Orthodox-Catholic relations during Benedict XVI’s cordial and fraternal meeting with a delegation sent by the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on occasion of the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul, patron saints of Rome.
If the Second Vatican Council marked “an important new phase in relations” between the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, the Pope expressed the hope that God may “bring closer the blessed day when we can share the Eucharistic table.”
Benedict XVI recalled the importance of the conciliar meetings on ecumenism, he recalled the “passion for Church unity” which animated the ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and popes John XXIII and Paul VI.
They “became proponents of bold initiatives which paved the way for a renewed relationship between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Catholic Church.”
Vatican Radio and the Holy See’s daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano gave special focus to the meeting, a sign of solid fraternity.
The Patriarchate’s delegation sent a delegation from the Holy See to Istanbul for the Feast of St. Andrew on 30 November.
The Pope concluded by expressing his “great joy” for the way in which the current Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, has continued this work, “with renewed faithfulness and abundant creativity…noted around the world for his openness to dialogue between Christians, and his commitment to the proclamation of the Gospel in the modern world.”
“The preaching of Ss. Peter and Paul, sealed by the witness of martyrdom, is the solid and eternal foundation upon which the Church is built. The roots of the “communion between us” are found in the faith in the Catholic doctrine communicated by the Apostles,” the Pope said.