The Address of Pope Benedict XVI to His Beatitude Christodoulos

Here is my English translation of the Address of Pope Benedict XVI to His Beatitude Christodoulos on the occasion of their meeting at the Vatican on December 14, 2006 (from the Vatican's original French):

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:3)

Beatitude,

Dear Brothers in Christ who accompany the venerable Archbishop of Athens and all Greece on the occasion of our fraternal meeting, I greet you in the Lord.

With a profound joy, I am happy to welcome you with the same expression that St. Paul addressed "to the Church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:2).  In the name of the Lord and with a sincere and brotherly affection, I welcome you among us in the Church of Rome, and I thank God who allows us to live this moment of grace and spiritual joy.

Your presence here revives in us the great Christian tradition which was born and which grew in your beloved and glorious Fatherland.  Through reading the Epistles of St. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles, this tradition reminds us each day of the first Christian communities formed in Corinth, Thessalonica and Philippi.  So we recall St. Paul’s presence and preaching in Athens, and his courageous proclamation of faith in the unknown God, revealed in Jesus Christ, and the message of the Resurrection, difficult for his contemporaries to hear.

In the first Epistle to the Christians in Corinth, who were the first to know difficulties and serious temptations of division, we can see a contemporary message for all Christians. Indeed, a real danger appears when people want to be identified with this or that group while saying: “I belong to Paul, or I to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas.”  It is at this point that Paul poses the frightening question: "Is Christ divided?"  (1 Cor. 1:13).

Greece and Rome developed their relationship from the dawn of Christianity and continued their interaction, which gave life to various types of communities and Christian traditions in the regions of the world that today correspond to Eastern Europe and Western Europe.  These intense relationships also helped to create a kind of osmosis in forming ecclesiastical institutions.  That osmosis - protecting the disciplinary, liturgical, theological and spiritual characteristics of the two traditions, Roman and Greek – made the Church’s evangelistic work and the cultivation of the Christian faith fruitful.

Today, our relationship begins anew, slowly but deeply, with a concern about authenticity.  It is, for us, the opportunity to discover a whole new range of spiritual expressions, rich in significance and mutual commitment.  We give thanks to God for it.

The memorable visit of my venerated predecessor, Pope John Paul II, to Athens, in the context of his pilgrimage in the steps of St. Paul, in 2001, remains a turning point in the increasing intensification of our contacts and collaboration.  During that pilgrimage, Pope John Paul II was welcomed with honor and respect by Your Beatitude and by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, and we remember in particular the moving meeting at the Areopagus where St. Paul preached.  Exchanges of delegations of priests and students followed.

In the same way, I neither want to forget, nor could I, the fruitful collaboration that was established between the “Apostoliki Diakonia” and the Vatican’s Apostolic Library.

Such initiatives contribute to a concrete mutual knowledge, and I do not doubt that they will have their role in promoting new interactions between the Church of Greece and the Church of Rome.

If we turn our glance towards the future, Beatitude, we have before our eyes a vast field in which our cultural and pastoral collaboration will be able to grow.

The various countries of Europe work toward the creation of new Europe, which cannot be an exclusively economic reality.  Catholics and Orthodox are called to offer their cultural and, especially, spiritual contribution.  Indeed, they have the duty to defend the continent’s Christian roots, which fashioned it over centuries, and thus to make it possible for the Christian tradition to continue to speak out and to work with all its strength for the protection of human dignity and respect for minorities, taking care to avoid a cultural standardization which would likely involve the loss of immense richness of civilization; in the same way, it is right to work for the protection of human rights, including the principle of individual freedom, especially religious freedom; these rights should be promoted and defended in the European Union and in each country which is its member.

At the same time, it is right to form a collaboration among Christians in each country of the European Union, in order to face new risks confronting the Christian faith, namely, increasing secularization, relativism and nihilism, which open the way to behaviors and even to legislation that undermines a person’s inalienable dignity, and which question institutions as fundamental as marriage.  It is urgent to undertake joint pastoral work, which will constitute a common testimony for our contemporaries and will prepare us to account for the hope that is within us.

Your presence here, in Rome, Beatitude, is the sign of this common commitment.  On its part, the Catholic Church profoundly wishes to undertake all that is possible for our reconciliation, so that we can arrive at full communion between Catholics and Orthodox, and, for the present, supports a pastoral collaboration on all possible levels, so that the Gospel will be proclaimed and the name of God will be blessed.

Beatitude, I repeat my welcome wish to yourself and to the beloved brothers who accompany you in your visit.  Entrusting you to the intercession of the Theotokos, I ask the Lord to fill you with the abundance of celestial Blessings.

Update: As of Jan. 2007, there is now an official Vatican translation of this address.