In this photo provided by the Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI welcomes Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, at the Vatican, Thursday, March 6, 2008. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano/h.o.)
Posted on 03/06/2008 6:18:16 AM PST by NYer
Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI and the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Bartholomew I, prayed together Thursday after meeting for private talks, the Vatican said. Bartholomew, who holds the title of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul) recited together with Benedict Latin versions of the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers, news reports said.
The Vatican did not immediately provide details on the talks.
During the visit, which marks the third meeting between the pontiff and the patriarch, Bartholomew was accompanied by a delegation including Ioannis of Pergamo, the Orthodox president of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, a Vatican statement said.
Bartholomew met Benedict when the pontiff visited Istanbul in November 2006, and also at an international meeting for peace held in Naples in October 2007.
The patriarch was scheduled later Thursday to preside at an academic function at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute for the 90th anniversary of its foundation. Bartholomew gained his doctorate at the same institution.
Bartholomew has been at the forefront of attempts to strengthen bonds between Orthodox communities, who are divided into national churches, as well in healing the rift between Eastern Christians and the Western Roman Catholic Church which occurred with the Great Schism of 1054.
A Blessed Lent for those of the Orthodox Churches, which starts Monday.
Christians, let's pray for unity, as Christ instructed us.
Beautiful.
When journalists get it that wrong, I somehow manage to laugh.
I am getting the impression that Pope Benedict XVI desires the restoration of the unity of the body of Christ. May God bless him.
I thought the EP was considered first among equals amongst the Orthodox? Wouldn’t that be considered the “spiritual leader”? I don’t mean to be insulting, just curious.
Yes.Wouldn’t that be considered the “spiritual leader”?
No, because "leader" implies authority over the others and no Patriarch or Pope has that authority.
Didn’t I read that the Patriarch of the Eastern Church had to be a Turk? And didn’t I read that because of the Turks, there was no seminary in Turkey to train priests so that there would be a successor for the Patriarch?
If so, I conjecture that these meetings will eventually result in “both lungs” once again breathing deeply and well in the Church in Rome.
Pinging those with more knowledge.
“Didn’t I read that the Patriarch of the Eastern Church had to be a Turk? And didn’t I read that because of the Turks, there was no seminary in Turkey to train priests so that there would be a successor for the Patriarch?”
The Eastern Barbarians require that the EP be a Turkish citizen and have served, I believe, in the Turkish Army. It remains to be seen how long, in light of Turkey’s desire to join the EU, this requirement will persist. The foregoing notwithstanding, I suspect we can have anyone we want as EP. The Turks don’t recognize the office anyway.
What troubles me is this — I’m pretty sure that most of the present day Turks have very little “Turkic” blood in them — like most of the later Caliphs, they had / have more Greek blood in them. And back to what troubles me — why don’t they come back to The Church??
“And back to what troubles me — why don’t they come back to The Church??”
Becoming a Christian in Turkey entails, as a practical matter, precisely the sort of risk apostasy from Mohammedanism has always entailed, death. That said, there is a sort of underground, secret Orthodoxy being practiced there, sometimes quite literally underground, with chapels, priests, the works. These people have preserved their Orthodoxy in secret for centuries. I’ve actually met a priest who served some of these people. I have been told that there was something along the same lines for centuries in Albanian though not as widespread or as faithful to Orthodoxy; more sort of a crypto Christianity really than anything else.
ok, though I thought Turkey would be little more open to freedom of religion — but I would be wrong.
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