9 Dicembre 2009 -11 :14 pagina 529 e : /0693_9 /Lavoro /Acta_Giugno_9.3d GRECCO

XIV

In oecumenica congressione apud Patriarchatum Graeco-Orthodoxum in Ierusalem.*

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is with profound gratitude and joy that I make this visit to the Greek

Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem; a moment to which I have much looked

forward. I thank His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus III for his kind words

of fraternal greeting, which I warmly reciprocate. I also express to all of you

my heartfelt gratitude for providing me with this opportunity to meet once

again the many leaders of Churches and ecclesial communities present.

This morning I am mindful of the historic meetings that have taken place

here in Jerusalem between my predecessor Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical

Patriarch Athenagoras I, and also between Pope John Paul II and His Bea-

titude Patriarch Diodoros. These encounters, including my visit today, are of

great symbolic significance. They recall that the light of the East1 has illu-

mined the entire world from the very moment when a "rising sun" came to

visit us2 and they remind us too that from here the Gospel was preached to all

nations.

Standing in this hallowed place, alongside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

which marks the site where our crucified Lord rose from the dead for all hu-

manity, and near the cenacle, where on the day of Pentecost "they were all

together in one place",3 who could not feel impelled to bring the fullness of

goodwill, sound scholarship and spiritual desire to our ecumenical endeavors? I

pray that our gathering today will give new impetus to the work of theological

dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, adding to

the recent fruits of study documents and other joint initiatives.

Of particular joy for our Churches has been the participation of the Ecu-

menical Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew I, at the recent

Synod of Bishops in Rome dedicated to the theme: The Word of God in the Life

and Mission of the Church. The warm welcome he received and his moving

intervention were sincere expressions of the deep spiritual joy that arises from

the extent to which communion is already present between our Churches. Such

ecumenical experience bears clear witness to the link between the unity of the

Church and her mission. Extending his arms on the Cross, Jesus revealed the

Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 529

* Die 15 Maii 2009. 1 Cfr. Is 60:1; Rev 21:10. 2 Lk 1:78. 3 Acts 2:1.