Vatican City, Jul 1, 2004 / 22:00 pm
At the end of their meeting yesterday afternoon, Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I signed a Common Declaration "witnessing to the firm will to continue on the path towards full communion between us in Christ."
The Declaration recalls that the encounters in recent days in the Vatican marked the 40th anniversary of the embrace between Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in January 1964 which "visibly expressed a hope present in the hearts of everyone," that "all may be one" as Christ desired.
“Unity and Peace! The hope kindled by that historical meeting has illuminated the path of these last decades,” says the statement.
It adds that although “the Christian world for centuries has suffered the drama of separation,” there have been signs of progress, such as reciprocal meetings in Fanar and Rome between John Paul II and the ecumenical patriarchs and the establishment in 1979 of the International Mixed Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole.