Posted by George Patsourakos
on 7/1/2009, 10:21 pm
In an effort to resolve the question of primacy in a united Church, Pope Benedict XVI recently told three Orthodox Church leaders that the role the Bishop of Rome played in the first thousand years of the Christian Church must be included for Christian unity to occur. The Christian Church split in what is referred to as the Great Schism in 1054, when it became divided into Catholic and Orthodox branches.
The pope met at the Vatican on June 27, 2009 with Orthodox Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, Bishop Athenagoras of Sinope, who serves as the assistant metropolitan of Belgium, and Deacon Ioakim Billis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Pope Benedict told the three Orthodox Church leaders "the Catholic Church intends to contribute in every way to making it possible to re-establish full communion in response to Christ's will for His disciples."
The pope also said that the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue commission would meet in October, 2009 in Cyprus "to face a theme crucial for relations between the East and West, that is the 'role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of the church in the first millenium.'"
For additional information on this subject, visit the Catholic News website.
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