Phanar head: God inspired to unite RCC and Orthodoxy in a common cup

Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: pravoslavie.ru

At the сonference “Pope Paul VI, the Patriarch Athenagoras, Chiara Lubich. Prophecy of Unity between the Sister Churches” organized by the Loppiano Florence University, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said that God inspired to unite the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches in a common Eucharistic cup, reports fanarion.blogspot.com.

According to the head of the Phanar, “our truly blessed, ever-memorable predecessor, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI, by divine inspiration, took upon themselves the sacred task of reconciling the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in order to unite these Churches in a common cup".

He called the meeting of Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem in 1964 “blessed” and noted that it was “the most important event in the history of relations between the two Churches since 1054” and one of the most prophetic in Rome and Constantinople.

“The two Primates realized that the West and the East cannot live in isolation and self-sufficiency, because it damaged the Unity and Catholicity of the Body of Christ, that dialogue in love and truth can lead to unity based on the solid foundation of the first millennium,” said the head of the Phanar.

He stressed that “the aforementioned church leaders recalled the indisputable fact that the two sister Churches, which after the schism of 1054, especially after the crusades, were divided and alienated, share a common biblical, patristic and ecclesiological tradition and the teaching of an indivisible Church capable of serving as a basis to restore the lost relationship between them".

“The joyful and blessed fruit of the meeting in Jerusalem and subsequent meetings of the two Primates, as well as their immediate successors in the Phanar and the Vatican, made a huge contribution to deepening relations between the two sister churches,” said Patriarch Bartholomew.

Earlier, Metropolitan Polycarp (Stavropoulos) of Italy, the Exarch of Southern Europe of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, said that the full unity of Catholics and Orthodox Christians is down the stretch.

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