The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will meet Pope Francis in Rome in October for a joint service of Evening Prayer in the church of San Gregorio al Celio.
This will be the third time the current head of the Church of England has met the Pope.
The event forms part of formal celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of The Anglican Centre in Rome; the centre seeks to bring down barriers of misunderstanding between Anglicans and Catholics. The meeting comes just weeks before the Pope is due in Lund, Sweden, for the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
According to a statement on The Anglican Centre in Rome’s website, the service will combine elements of Anglican Evensong and Catholic Vespers, and will see the Sistine Chapel Choir joined by the choir of Canterbury Cathedral as they come together in common worship.
The central part of the service will be the blessing and sending out of 36 bishops from the International Anglican and Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission – a group of Anglican and Catholic bishops from around the world committed to ecumenism and finding ways to give greater witness to their common faith.
A spokesperson from Lambeth Palace said Archbishop Welby was “delighted” to be visiting the Pope and full details of his schedule will be announced in due course.
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