ΑDDRESS BY ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW TO THE OFFICIAL DELEGATION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Thronal Feast of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

 Αddressed by  Ecumenical Patriarch  to the official delegation of the Roman Catholic Church

Your Eminence, Kurt Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and members of the official Delegation of our Sister Church of Elder Rome,

Filled with sentiments of love and honor, we greet and welcome you here at the festive Phanar, as you honorably bear the festal wishes of His Holiness Pope Francis. We entreat Your beloved Eminence to convey to His Holiness our brother the wholehearted thanks of the Church of Constantinople and our Modesty for graciously sending your Delegation and for the participation of the Church of Rome in the events of our Thronal Feast.

The pandemic of the coronavirus has variously impacted our ecclesiastical life and inter-Christian dialogues. It is now almost two consecutive years that the objectives of the Mixed International Commission of Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches have been unable to be realized through person-to-person encounters. We hope that this will occur next May 2022 and that the convening of the Commission’s plenary will also return to its course. What is certain is that the current topic of the Dialogue – “Primacy and Conciliarity during the second millennium and today” – pertains to the nature, structure and function of the Church and to its unity and catholicity. We are especially pleased with all the initiatives of Pope Francis concerning the importance of the proper function of conciliarity. Indeed, even on this matter, the Dialogue between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church has proved a productive venue of profound theological knowledge and mutual ecclesiological enrichment. We are convinced that this Dialogue of love and truth nurtures and strengthens the spirit of dialogue more broadly and facilitates the encounter of our Churches with the contemporary world.

We regard it as an immense blessing that with our brother Francis we share a common sensitivity and approach for the vast contemporary challenges. Our Christian witness in the world is advanced by our personal meetings as well as our joint declarations and initiatives before burning global issues such as climate change, the refugee problem, the preservation of human rights, the social inequality, the protection of childhood, the confrontation of religious fundamentalism and other matters. We strive for the promotion of a culture of solidarity and fraternity, knowing that the very life of the Church is a great revolution in the field of human relations, the protection of the sanctity and beauty of the human person as well as revelation of its eternal destiny in Christ.

We all know that the Church of Christ lives in a world that is very different to that of other periods; and in this world, the Church is obliged to proclaim the Gospel of the Grace that has come through Christ and will come through the Kingdom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a world that the Church cannot reject and cannot identify itself with. The Church represents and expresses all that humankind cannot provide for itself: namely, the transcendent dimension of its existence, which no cultural development and scientific progress covers or eliminates. The adaptation of the Church to the spirit of the present age deprives the former of the capacity to serve this transcendent and spiritual nature of humankind. In this sense, as the late Fr. Georges Florovsky rightly emphasizes, “the Word of God cannot be easily adjusted or accommodated to the fleeting customs and attitudes of any particular age, including our own time. Unfortunately, we are often inclined to measure the Word of God by our own stature, instead of checking our mind by the stature of Christ.” What is clear is that neither secularization nor introversion and isolation in the Church constitute the proper experience and application of its nature as being “in the world” but not “of the world.”

With these thoughts and sentiments, we greet your presence at the venerable See of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. We communicate our sincere gratitude to our brother Pope Francis for his kind words on our completion of 30 years since we were elected to the Throne of Andrew, the First-Called of the Apostles,” along with our fervent wishes for his forthcoming 85^th birthday. Finally, we pray that He who is glorified in His Apostles Andrew and Peter, who imitated and participated in the Lord’s Passion and founded our Churches, may grant you unfailing health and every blessing from above for the continuation of your noble ministry in the Church, and we close with special honor and deep love in the Lord.

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