The Anglican Centre in Rome celebrates its fiftieth anniversary next week with a visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to the city and to Pope Francis. The centre’s work, says its director, is driven by the impulse to unity implored by Christ

When Pope Francis met the Armenian patriarch two years ago, he said to him: “In our time the blood of innumerable Christians has become a seed of unity.” How was the Pope able to say this? How is it possible to speak of this kind of spiritual intimacy between communions that are not yet fully reconciled, where there are still divisions?

The reason the Pope can speak in this way is because of the great decree on ecumenism from the Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintegratio, issued in 1964. The council said then: “It is right and salutary to recognise the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of their blood.”

Unitatis Redintegratio made it clear that all Christians baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity share the same generic faith, and are members of the one Church of Christ. It declared: “It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the Church as a whole, who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful.” And in another place the decree said: “Whenever the Sacrament of Baptism is duly administered as Our Lord instituted it, and is received with the right dispositions, a person is truly incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ, and reborn to a sharing of the divine life … ”.