01 June 2003
NEWS
Two Romanian Universities Are Honouring Archbishop Christodoulos
The Archbishop Christodoulos will visit Rumania from 4 to 12 of June. He will be honoured with degrees from the Universities of Craiova and of Iasi. In his addresses he will focus on the future of the European Cultural identity.
He will also visit Romanian Patriarch Maxim and Hierarchs members of the Romanian Synod to discuss current ecclesiastical issues.
The Archbishop Christodoulos will visit the office of the Solidarity in Rumania accompanied by the Director of the Organisation Dr Dimitri Fourlemadis. Solidarity, a Charity NGO of the Church of Greece, is developing two projects in Romania.
Orthodox and Catholic Theologians Discuss Papal Ministry
Catholic and Orthodox theologians met to identify key points on the question of the papal ministry, during a symposium convoked by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
With this initiative, the council's president, Cardinal Walter Kasper, wished to respond to John Paul II's petition in his encyclical "Ut Unum Sint" to "find a way to exercise the primacy that, without renouncing in any way that which is essential to its mission, will open to a new situation."
Papal authority is a fundamental issue that has separated Orthodox and Catholics since the schism of 1054.
Professors of Theology from Athens and Salonica Univ. participated in the academic meeting last week. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, sent representatives -- as well as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Serbian and Romanian Patriarchates, and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
The Russian Orthodox Patriarchate was also invited, but the appointed representatives were unable to travel to Rome.
Topics discussed included the biblical foundation of the primacy; the primacy according to the Church Fathers; the role of the pope in ecumenical councils; and recent debates on primacy in relation to the First Vatican Council and among Orthodox theologians.
[Source: ZENIT – Edited by EReport]
See on News page of www.ecclesia.gr:
Charta oecumenica" signed by 16 german churches during the "ecumenical kirchentag"
