Regarding admittance to the Eucharist for remarried Catholics (“It is necessary to bind many wounds”, 5 April), the tolerant approach advocated by Cardinal Kasper and German bishops finds important support in the ­tradition of the Church. First, the attitude of the Orthodox Church, in accepting divorce and marriage within certain limits, and Communion for the divorced within these limits, was the attitude of at least half the Catholic Church during more than half its history: that is, throughout the time when the Eastern Church formed an integral part of the Catholic Church, before the schism between Rome and Constantinople in 1054. Secondly, canon 8 of the first Council of Nicaea in 325, which is recognised as an ecumenical council and therefore binding on Catholics as we