Alive in that dawn ?

The Archbishop of Canterbury will travel to Rome later this month to meet Pope Benedict XVI, marking the fortieth anniversary of the groundbreaking trip to Rome by Archbishop Michael Ramsey. A seminarian of the time recalls the remarkable mood of those days

In March 1966, when Archbishop Michael Ramsey came to Rome for the first meeting between the Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury since Henry VIII broke with Rome in the sixteenth century, I was a seminarian at the English College. Forty years on, as Ramsey's successor Dr Rowan Williams prepares to meet Pope Benedict XVI, vivid memories of the welcome given by Pope Paul VI to Dr Williams' predecessor have returned in abundance.

The historic importance of the 1966 meeting was evident to Christians everywhere, but for me, its ecumenical significance took on a very personal texture. Together with my two sisters, I was brought up a Catholic by our mother. Our father was Church of England. While my parents were devoted to each other, the subject of religion always caused disharmony and discord within our household in the 1950s. I was a devout boy and would attend early morning Mass daily at the local convent and enjoyed my role as altar server. In my teens I decided I wanted to become a priest, and aged nearly 18 was sent by Southwark Diocese to train at the English College in Rome.

Chris Larkman worked for the Diocese  of Southwark from the time of his ordination in 1970 until 1981. He is now married with four children and is a social work consultant.

On 3 October 1963 I stood on platform 2 at Victoria Station, accompanied by Chris Budd (now Bishop of Plymouth, but at the time returning to Rome to undertake postgraduate training) and boarded the boat train. I was off to Rome for seven years and not returning home for three years. The next day, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, we arrived at the college, and in we went to supper. Besides the 90 students and staff, the centre table accommodated the English and Welsh hierarchy. They were in Rome attending the second session of the Second Vatican Council.

Thanks to the initiative of Pope John XXIII, Rome had become the centre of the Church because it was the meeting point of representatives of the Church from around the world. The representatives included priests and lay Catholics as well as bishops. The intellectual debate within the college about the future of the Church reflected the radical thinking among young people at that time throughout the Western world.

It was within this context that Archbishop Ramsey arrived in Rome in March 1966 and, together with his colleagues, stayed with us at the English College. He was received as a friend and fellow Christian - a welcome that blew to bits many of the preconceptions of my upbringing.

I received an invitation to the service in the Sistine Chapel at which the pope and the archbishop presided together. You have to imagine the scale of something like this, in which we witnessed the pope in the Sistine Chapel sharing the presiding role with a non-Catholic. And I had a splendid vantage point. As young clerics, some of us enjoyed playing games in the Vatican, such as weaselling our way into the private areas without getting stopped. The way to do this was to walk around as if you owned the place and knew exactly where you were going. On this occasion, I noticed two spare seats in the second row with all the ambassadors, made for them with confidence and sat down.

I recall the end of the service. The pope stepped up to give his blessing, and clearly this part of the ceremony had not been rehearsed. He then signalled to Archbishop Ramsey, who was next to him at the altar, to give the blessing with him. Archbishop Ramsey was a bit nonplussed, and there may have been a language problem in the pope's request. The pope then calmly took hold of Archbishop Ramsey's arm and moved it into a blessing. The message got through!

I remember too the mighty banquet mounted by the Vatican to celebrate the visit at the English College. Even then, we felt caviar was a little "over the top" and something simpler would have reflected better the beautiful simplicity of the service in the Sistine Chapel. However, I suppose it was the Vatican's way of recognising the importance of the meeting.

On 24 March a public service was held at San Paolo fuori le Mura. Again the service was presided over jointly by the pope and the archbishop. But it was the scene outside the church after the service that has stayed in my memory and that of many others who were there at the time. The church was packed. Not only were there the many representatives of the English Catholic and Anglican Churches, but also many Italians, who were keen to see the pope and this unknown English figure with whom the pope was spending a lot of time. I can picture now the scene in the massive courtyard of St Paul's as the pope and the archbishop left the basilica. They found themselves surrounded by thousands of enthusiastic and curious people. As he was about to bid farewell to the archbishop, the pope took off the ring he was wearing and placed it on the archbishop's hand. The pope was then swiftly whisked off into his car to take him back to the Vatican, leaving the archbishop standing alone in the midst of the crowd.

This simple gesture from the pope moved him to tears. Still surrounded by countless local people, the archbishop gave his blessing amid the tears. Later, we all gathered in the English College courtyard to bid farewell to the archbishop and his colleagues. The Senior Student asked the archbishop to give us his blessing. We all knelt down to receive it. As you read this you are probably thinking this was no big deal. But this was 1966 and here were 90 Catholic seminarians in Rome, all in their cassocks, kneeling down to receive the blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have to tell you we all felt a bit mischievous. Indeed we very much hoped the press would pick up on this event. We wanted our own bishops to see it, since at the time they were not "up to speed" on ecumenism. Like the students of the 1960s we were rebellious, and this felt like our own rebellion. Unfortunately, all the journalists were already at Fiumicino Airport awaiting the archbishop's arrival, so our misdemeanours went unreported.

As a direct consequence of this visit, the Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) was set up and worked tirelessly to produce joint statements on matters of Christian faith. I have found these documents immensely inspiring. I was brought up to believe that in terms of the Eucharist, we Catholics had the real thing, and the Anglicans did not. In 1971 key representatives of the two Churches produced a combined statement, affirming that they had reached "substantial agreement on the doctrine of the Eucharist" ("The Windsor Report on Eucharistic Doctrine"). Furthermore, individual representatives came away declaring that their own personal understanding of the Eucharist had been deepened and strengthened by the mutual study and sharing.

In 2005, "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ" was offered as the latest joint statement. This small document represents for me a beautiful and comprehensive summary of Christians' understanding of the place of Mary in the story of our salvation and subsequent veneration. This flew in the face of my upbringing, where our positions on Mary were, and it seemed always would be, incompatible.

I look forward to Archbishop Rowan Williams' visit to Rome on 22 November. My hope is that our Church leaders will indeed celebrate that event and what ensued from it, and commit themselves to continue to develop the theme of "Ut unum sint" (That they may be one). The journey made by the Churches has assisted in bringing my own family together. Is it not amazing that our Christian belief was the one area of discord, when it should have been the one thing that united us? Let us not dwell on the superficial issues on which we disagree, but let us continue to focus on what we can receive from each other in order to establish harmony in our families, in our Churches and in our world.

Chris Larkman worked for the Diocese  of Southwark from the time of his ordination in 1970 until 1981. He is now married with four children and is a social work consultant.