Pope, Ecumenical Patriarch join in prayer
Posted on Thu Mar 06 2008
Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople met and prayed together at the Vatican on March 6.
Vatican, Mar. 6, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople met and prayed together at the Vatican on March 6.
After a brief conversation, the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch went to the Urban VII chapel of the apostolic palace for a time of prayer, saying the Lord's Prayer together in Latin.
The Patriarch was in Rome to join in ceremonies marking the 90th anniversary of the
Pontifical Oriental Institute.
Patriarch Bartholomew was a student there in the 1960s, earning a doctorate before his ordination to the Orthodox priesthood in 1969.
Pope Benedict and Patriarch Bartholomew, who have pledged their joint efforts toward the restoration of full Christian unity, were meeting for the 3rd time since the Pope was elected to Peter's throne in 2005.
Their first meeting was in November 2006 when the Pope traveled to Istanbul to join with the Orthodox leader in celebrating the feast of St. Andrew, the patron of the Constantinople see. (Patriarch Bartholomew had issued an invitation for such a papal visit immediately after Benedict's election as Roman Pontiff.) They met again in October 2007 when the Ecumenical Patriarch traveled to Italy to participate in the International Meeting for Peace in Naples.
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