Posted on 03/01/2009 10:04:42 PM PST by pobeda1945
BARI (Italy), March 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev who traveled to the southern Italian city of Bari received on Sunday a symbolic key to Italy's Russian Orthodox Church from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
The handover of the church complex was agreed during the then Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Russia in March 2007. On April 17, the city council of Bari unanimously voted to hand the 100-year-old church to the Italian government so it could subsequently become Russian property.
A century ago Grand Princess Elizaveta Fyodorovna first raised the idea of building the church to welcome Russian pilgrims in Bari, the burial place of St. Nicolas, one of the most revered Orthodox saints. The construction of the complex, which was built with charitable donations, was suspended due to World War I and the Russian Revolution in 1917.
In 1937, the church buildings and the land, totaling 8,000 square meters (2 acres), were handed to Bari's municipal authorities.
Do not use potty language - or references to potty language - on the Religion Forum.
?
A nice gesture by the Italian government.
A nice gesture...
One note of interest from what I understand when the Orthodox and Catholics get together for the dialogue discussion from those meetings the Russians and Italians get along very very well.
One note of interest from what I understand when the Orthodox and Catholics get together for the dialogue discussion from those meetings the Russians and Italians get along very very well.
“A nice gesture...”
Indeed it is.
This is the Romanesque basilica in Bari:
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