VATICAN CITY (CNS): Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople will meet with Pope John Paul II in late June and attend the papal Mass for the June 29 feast of Sts Peter and Paul, the Vatican said on May 6.
The visit will mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s historic 1964 meeting with Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras.
Fr Gregorios Stergiou, who is pastor of the Greek Orthodox community in Rome, said the patriarch, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Churches, would arrive in Rome on June 29 and remain until July 2.
On July 1, the priest said, Patriarch Bartholomew would dedicate the newly remodelled Church of St Theodore on Rome’s Palatine Hill.
Pope John Paul has given the Greek Orthodox community exclusive use of the church, which is in the heart of what was Rome’s Greek quarter more than 1000 years ago.
