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Skriven 2006-09-19 21:24:56 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45)
Ärende: Vatican Information Service (Press Release)
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                The following press release is Copyrighted by the
                          Vatican Information Service.
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                               VIS-Press releases

PLENARY SESSION OF CATHOLIC-ORTHODOX COMMISSION

VATICAN CITY, SEP 19, 2006 (VIS) - The Joint International Commission for
Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church is
holding its ninth plenary session in Belgrade, Serbia, from September 18 to 25.

A communique issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
explains how yesterday evening Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox Church
welcomed Catholic and Orthodox members of the commission to the headquarters of
his patriarchate.

With its Belgrade meeting, the commission resumes its work following the
plenary session held in Baltimore, U.S.A., in July 2000. "From December 13 to
15, 2005," the communique reads, "official theological dialogue between the
Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, coordinated for the Orthodox by the
ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, inaugurated its current new phase with
the meeting of the commission's 'joint coordinating committee,' which had the
task of preparing the plenary session of Belgrade and of establishing the theme
to be discussed.

"The resumption of dialogue," the communique adds, "has been possible thanks to
the constant activity of mediation and persuasion encouraged by Pope John Paul
II, by Pope Benedict XVI, by the commitment of the ecumenical patriarchate, and
by many forms of contact and collaboration between the Catholic Church and the
individual Orthodox Churches. It is based upon a decision taken at the Church
of St. George in Fanar in September 2005 during a pan-Orthodox meeting called
by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I."

The communique goes on to recall how in Rome last December, the coordinating
committee established "that in accordance with the documents already agreed by
the commission, the general context of its work is the theology of 'koinonia,'
or communion, and that this context needs to be reinforced with further study
in order to enable more profound debate on two interconnected questions central
to relations between the two Churches: the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and
the theme of 'uniatism,' in addition to other questions that remain open."

The Belgrade meeting, then, "will study the draft document prepared during the
1990 meeting of the joint coordinating committee in Moscow and not yet
discussed by the plenary session of the commission: 'The ecclesiological and
canonical consequences of the sacramental nature of the Church - authority and
conciliarity in the Church'."

On September 21, the 29 Catholic members participating in the plenary will
attend an Orthodox liturgical celebration for the Feast of the Nativity of the
Mother of God. On September 23, the Orthodox members will participate in a Mass
at the Catholic cathedral of Belgrade, and on September 24, the Catholic
members will attend a divine liturgy celebrated by the Orthodox.

The commission is presided by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and by Ioannis, metropolitan
of Pergamo. It has two secretaries: Gennadios, metropolitan of Sassima, and
Msgr. Eleuterio F. Fortino, under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity.
CON-UC/CATHOLIC ORTHODOX PLENARY/BELGRADE VIS 060919 (490)

SUMMARY

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