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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embraces Pope Francis at a celebration of the Divine Liturgy in Istanbul - REUTERS (Vatican Radio)  In an address upon conclusion of the Divine Liturgy celebrated by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I at the Orthodox Church of St. George in Istanbul, Pope Francis said “the one thing that the Catholic Church desires and that I seek as Bishop of Rome…is communion with the Orthodox Churches.” Below, please find the complete text of the Holy Father’s address:             When I was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, I often took part in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy of...

Vatican's chief ecumenical officer speaks about implications of this weekend's papal visitPope Francis and Ecumencial Patriarch Bartholomew will sign a joint declaration Sunday, confirming the growing relationship between the long-separated Churches of Rome and Constantinople. The Pope's visit comes just six months after he and Bartholomew met in Jerusalem and singed a Joint Declaration about their commitment to the search for Christian unity. Accompanying Pope Francis on the journey to Turkey is the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, who said in a Vatican Radio interview this week that first of all ithe papal...

Calling Pope Francis his “beloved brother in Christ,” the head of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on Sunday recalled their gathering last May at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on the fiftieth anniversary of the historic ecumenical meeting of their predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras. Welcoming the Pope after a celebration of the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Church of St. George in Istanbul, Patriarch Bartholomew said “the path toward unity is more urgent than ever for those who invoke the name of the great Peacemaker.” Citing the “diverse divisions, conflicts and animosities,...

Pope Francis this afternoon celebrated Mass at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul. Present at the Eucharistic celebration was the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, along with several Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs from the region. During his homily, Francis said: "Only the Holy Spirit is able to kindle diversity, multiplicity and, at the same time, bring about unity. When we try to create diversity, but are closed within our own particular and exclusive ways of seeing things, we create division. He added: "When we try to create unity through our own human designs, we end up with uniformity...

Pope asks Patriarch to 'bless me and the Church of Rome'The full text of the Pope’s address to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, at a prayer service in Istanbul, courtesy of Vatican Radio: Your Holiness, my dear Brother, Each evening brings a mixed feeling of gratitude for the day which is ending and of hope-filled trust as night falls. This evening my heart is full of gratitude to God who allows me to be here in prayer with Your Holiness and with this sister Church after an eventful day during my Apostolic Visit. At the same time my...

Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter tonight to defend 20th Century Fox's new movie "Exodus" that casts Christian Bale as Moses, and a variety of white actors as Egyptians. There’s been scuffle on Twitter ever since Murdoch made his observations. And a lot of this stems from a quote director Ridley Scott gave Variety about why he didn’t use Egyptian or Arab actors for the film. He said: "I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such," Scott says. "I'm just...

ISTANBUL, Turkey — While there are plenty of reasons why Pope Francis is going to Turkey this weekend, the official motive is clear: To meet Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and to move Catholicism and Orthodoxy closer to unity. The small Orthodox community Francis will find may not exactly be on life support, but it faces severe pressure related to being a minority in a country that’s 98 percent Muslim, and where Christians are often seen as a foreign presence. In 2009, the normally measured Bartholomew said he felt “crucified” by a state that wants to see his Church simply die...

Istanbul, Turkey, Nov 26, 2014 / 04:43 pm (Aid to the Church in Need).- Since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, and especially since the eruption of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Turkey has become the destination—or passage way—for hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of them Christians. Many, too, are young, single people, prepared to take great risks. In early November, a boat carrying illegal migrants from Turkey to Bulgaria capsized just after coming through the Straits of the Bosporus. The bulk of refugees end up in Istanbul, the vast metropolis capable of absorbing so many...

Notes Hopes That Francis' Apostolic Trip to Turkey Can Deepen Relations, Prepare Next StepsSwiss Cardinal Kurt Koch has suggested ecumenical dialogue is reaching new heights under the pontificate of Jesuit Pope Francis. In a wide-ranging interview with ZENIT at the Vatican last week, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity discusses Pope Francis' trip to Turkey and what it means for ecumenical dialogue and how this Pope’s reaching out to Evangelicals has created a “new situation” for the Church. Moreover, the prelate speaks on where the Church’s relationship with the Patriarchate of Moscow currently stands, the Pope’s...

The Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev not only misrepresents Catholic practice and history, he also misrepresents Orthodox practice and history Pope Francis meets with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of ecumenical relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, during a private meeting at the Vatican Nov. 12, 2013. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano vi a Reuters) Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the “foreign affairs minister” of the Russian Orthodox Church, is, as George Weigel observed recently in First Things, a talented man, “charming and witty.” However, the gifted Hilarion, Weigel rightly noted, “does not always speak the truth.” Hilarion is rather like the Energizer Bunny:...

Moscow, November 21, Interfax - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia attended a ceremony inaugurating a monument to Emperor Alexander I at the Alexander Garden near the Moscow Kremlin walls on Thursday. The ceremony was also attended by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, representatives from the Russian Orthodox Church and public figures, according to a statement posted on the Kremlin website. Unveiling the monument, Putin praised the emperor's role in forming the system of European and international security at the time. This event is timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary...

The Incarnational Drama of the Our Father Stephen BealeThere once was an Eastern Church spiritual adviser who suggested beginning the Our Father backwards.We should begin with the last petition so that we end with Our Father, he said. Such is the pathway to Easter: from temptation in the desert to forgiveness and manna in the desert to our arrival in the promised land—so goes the thinking in an anecdote Pope Benedict XVI recounts in Jesus of Nazareth.There is some sense to this: we often approach God in prayer in times of temptation, to seek deliverance, to ask for a...

BAKUFA, Iraq (AP) — The flag of an Iraqi Christian minority party is hoisted high over the village of Bakufa in northern Iraq, less than a month after Islamic State militants were pushed out and the extremists' black banner was taken down. The predominantly Christian Assyrian hamlet of 95 houses that once had about 500 people, located some 390 kilometers (243 miles) north of Baghdad, was overrun by the Islamic State group during its shocking blitz this summer, along with 22 other villages nearby. In a counter-offensive, the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters swept in from the north, battling the Islamic...

Vienna (Agenzia Fides) - A new appeal to all Christian Churches so that they celebrate the solemnity of Easter on the same date has been launched by the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch, Tawadros II. According to what Agenzia Fides learns, the Primate of the Christian Church, which is numerically higher among those present in Arab Countries, relaunched the issue yesterday, Sunday, November 9, during his speech in Vienna to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Pro-East Foundation. The body was in fact founded in 1964 by Austrian Cardinal Franz Koenig as a tool to facilitate full communion between the Catholic and...

Recently the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis will travel to Turkey Nov. 28-30, the official purpose for which is largely ecumenical. He’ll visit Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on the feast of St. Andrew, considered their patron in much the same way Catholics regard St. Peter as the first pope. The trip is also a way for Francis to express concern for violence in the region unleashed by the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate, and to expand his outreach to the Islamic world. But what’s not yet clear is how much of a push Francis will make on another front: An increasingly...

A bronze statue of St. John Paul II has been placed in the gardens of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, as “gift of the Russian people.” Sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, the president of the Russian Art Academy, said that the statue, which stands nearly 12 feet tall, shows the character of the Polish Pontiff as a man who “reflects the tragedy and contradictory character of the 20th century,” and a spiritual leader “who personified universal conscience.” Russian sculptor Tsereteli to open a monument to John Paul II at Notre-Dame de Paris (Interfax)

Amman (Agenzia Fides) - Christians gave their own contribution to the building of Arab civilization. This is also why the forced displacement of the indigenous Christian communities in the Middle East is a serious problem, which must be curbed in any way possible. This is what King Abdullah II of Jordan said in his talks with the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, who on Wednesday 29 October, at the head of a large and distinguished delegation, began his official visit in the Kingdom of Jordan, the first regarding an Armenian Head of State. As Jordanian media reports consulted by Agenzia...

Senior theologians in Anglican Communion and Oriental Orthodox Churches recently made history by signing an agreement on their mutual understanding of Christ's incarnation. This was not just a minor point of theology, rather it was a subject that divided the Church following the Council of Chalcedon* in 451 AD, leaving the Oriental Orthodox Churches separated from the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Church of Rome. The work to reconcile these branches of the Christian family on the question of how the two natures, human and divine, were united in one human being: Jesus Christ began in earnest in the 1990s....

There is one particular thing that illustrates better than anything else the unreasonableness — and some would say gall — of homosexuality activists. It’s not demanding that bakers, shirt printers, and wedding planners be party to events and expression deeply contrary to their principles, as offensive as that is. What I speak of is something even more fundamental, something again brought to light by the recent Vatican synod on the family. As many know, the synod made news with an unwisely released and widely misrepresented mid-term report containing language that the secular media interpreted as signaling church capitulation on the...

If only he had shaved that morning. Basilios Bessarion grew up in an Eastern Orthodox community in present-day Turkey in the early 15th century. He become a monk, then an abbot, and was eventually appointed to be a metropolitan bishop by the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, with whom he attended the ecumenical Council of Florence with hopes to reunite eastern and western Christianity. Though Bessarion was originally against reunion with Rome, he quickly changed his mind and became the most important Eastern Orthodox advocate for reunion at the council. Pope Eugene IV was so impressed by him that he...