Orthodox-Catholic unity

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew greets Vatican delegation at the Phanar

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From the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle:

Istanbul, Turkey
11/30/2009

His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew addressed a Vatican delegation representing Pope Benedict XVI at the Thronal Feast of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on November 30, 2009. The delegation, led by Cardinal Walter Kasper also delivered greetings to His All Holiness on behalf of Pope Benedict. The Ecumenical Patriarch’s greeting on the feast of St. Andrew the First Called follows:

Your Eminence Cardinal Walter Kasper, representative of His Holiness the Pope and Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI, and your honorable entourage,

Pat. Bartholomew and Card. Kasper

It is with great joy that we welcome you once again to the courtyard of the Church of New Rome in order to concelebrate the sacred memory of its founder and protector Saint Andrew the First-Called of the Apostles. We express our heartfelt gratitude to our beloved brother in the Lord, His Holiness Pope Benedict of Old Rome, who deigned to delegate his representatives to the Thronal feast of our Church, following the custom established decades ago for an exchange of visitations during the patronal feasts of our two ancient and apostolic Churches as confirmation of their desire to lift the impediments, accumulated over a millennium and preventing the fullness of communion among them. We attribute great symbolical significance to your presence here inasmuch as it also reveals — in a deeply formal manner — the desire of the most holy Church of Rome to do whatever it can on its part, so that we may rediscover our unity in the same faith and sacramental communion according to the will of Him who has called us to unity “so that the world may believe.” (John 17.21) Continue reading →

Benedict to Bartholomew: Unity through truth and charity, not power

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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received a message today from Pope Benedict XVI at the Phanar on the occasion of the Feastday of St. Andrew the Apostle. The pope’s message was delivered by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, during the Divine Liturgy in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George.

From AsiaNews.it:

Pope Benedict and Pat. Bartholomew

Following an old tradition dating back to Pope Paul VI, the two Churches send delegations to celebrate their respective patron saints, an Orthodox delegation coming to Rome on the Feast Day of SS Peter and Paul (29 June), and a Vatican delegation travelling to the Phanar for the Feast Day of Saint Andrew (30 November).

Led by Card Walter Kasper, the Vatican delegation took part in the Divine Liturgy celebrated this morning in the Phanar by Bartholomew. At the end Cardinal Kasper, who chairs the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, handed the patriarch the papal message.

The theological dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox began again in Ravenna (October 2007) after years without important contacts. A month ago, a plenary session was held in Cyprus on the topic of “The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium”. Continue reading →

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The Primacy Problem (Catholic and Orthodox)

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In an interview with the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin, Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk talks about his first official visit to Rome in September as chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Affairs. He offers a caution about any Catholic-Orthodox union, something that media reports and at least one Catholic bishop said was imminent. In pointing out that the Roman Catholic understanding of the primacy of the bishop of Rome was a chief sticking point, Archbishop Hilarion also observed that the Orthodox have primacy issues, too. At least from the Russian perspective.

NCR: Archbishop Paolo Pezzi of Moscow was recently very optimistic about Catholic-Orthodox unity, saying it could possibly happen in a matter of months. What is your reaction to Archbishop Pezzi’s words, and what is your analysis of the current progress towards reunification?

Pope Benedict and Archbishop Hilarion

Archbishop Hilarion: I would be more cautious with regard to progress towards unity between the two Churches. Yes, I agree that the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches have a common understanding on issues concerning social and economic ethics, personal morality, family, bioethics and other topical issues facing the modern society.

This agreement enables our Churches already now to bear common witness to Christian ideals in the face of the secular world. A perfect unity between Churches however presupposes first of all harmony in faith, and here the situation appears to me to be more complicated.

The Joint Commission for Orthodox-Catholic Theological Dialogue now begins discussing the most important issue — though not the only one that divides the Catholics and the Orthodox — concerning the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the universal Church.

Unlike Archbishop Pezzi, I do not think we can reach a perfect agreement on this point in a matter of a few months. I have already had to point out that the problem of primacy within the universal Church has not been settled even within the world Orthodoxy. Continue reading →

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There’s a lot of buzz in the Catholic blogosphere…

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…that Catholic-Orthodox unity is imminent (well, maybe not imminet but no more than a quick bike ride away). That’s news to me, and also to Fr. Peter-Michael Preble who writes about it on his blog: Catholic-Orthodox Unity? Some background, more.

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