Orthodox patriarch wants ‘visible sign’ of ecumenism

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual head of the Orthodox Churches, has said he wants his Jerusalem meeting with Pope Francis in May to produce “a visible sign that ecumenism is not running out of breath”, writes Tom Heneghan.

During a visit to Paris last week, he said their joint visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre should “show that the walls of separation built through history are about to give way”. But he indicated that shared communion would still take time to establish because of unresolved differences that have developed over the centuries. “For the Catholic Church, the issue is to find new words to define its understanding of the ministry of Peter,” he told the daily La Croix.

The Orthodox for their part need to update their traditionally territorial organisation of member Churches with the new reality of globalised congregations, he said.

The Istanbul-based patriarchate will hold a meeting of Orthodox prelates in March to discuss a possible Pan-Orthodox council to resolve this issue.

Prospects for a breakthrough at a council were dimmed late last December when the Russian Church, the largest in world Orthodoxy, officially rejected a possible compromise on the papacy that recognised Rome’s “primacy in love” without granting it jurisdiction over other Churches. That formulation was worked out at a 2007 Catholic-Orthodox conference the Russians boycotted.