East and West

From the delightful blog "Shrine of the Holy Whapping":


Benedict XVI received in audience Patriarch Chrysostomos II of Cyprus. Chrysostomos requested a papal visit to Cyprus, as part of a coordinated effort of the European Churches to counter the growing secularism of Europe:

Your Holiness,

We ask your support through the invincible weapons of brotherly prayer, but also through your fatherly cry for the defense of the inalienable rights of the Ancient and Apostolic Sister Church of Cyprus, this crossroads of peoples, religions, languages and civilizations of the Mediterranean and Middle East.

We want you beside us! Through us the Holy Apostle Barnabas invites his elder brother, the Blessed Apostle Peter, to make a first Visit to his humble home and to receive hospitality in it, to feel as though it were his own home and to bless it!

We await you, Your Holiness, as Bishop of the Roman See which presides in charity, in the Cyprus of dialogue, democracy, dignity, faith, monasticism, hospitality, monuments and works of art! May you deign to come to us and give us the opportunity to reciprocate your fraternal hospitality during these splendid days that we have spent in the Eternal City!

The Patriarch shares much of Benedict's ecclesiology, and his full response (available at Zenit.org) is very optimistic about the eventual reunion of Orthodox and Catholic Churches--though also realistic, recognizing that he himself will likely not live to see that day.

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