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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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Arriving in Santiago on 20 May 2010, His Beatitude went to the Parador Hotel to prepare for meeting members of the Saint Lazarus Order, of which he is the Spiritual Protector. Accompanying His Beatitude for his stay was Archimandrite Mtanios Haddad, Patriarchal Apocrisary in Rome and Archimandrite Gabriel Ghanoum, who arrived on 21 May from Mexico, together with Deacon Naji Youssef and his family from the United States.
On the first afternoon, His Beatitude and Father Mtanios made a private visit to the Cathedral to venerate the tomb of the apostle, who reputedly evangelised Galicia and requested that after his death, his body be transported from Jerusalem to the region of his apostolic activity.
On 21 May, His Beatitude and other pilgrims were taken on a tour of the cathedral museum and roof, whence it is possible to survey the whole town which since the ninth century has grown up around the tomb.
The pilgrims were then formally welcomed by the Grand Master and Chevalier Joaquín Cayuela representing the Grand Priory of Spain at a reception in the former chapel of the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, founded on the order of the sovereign in the fifteenth century for the purpose of sheltering the pilgrims arriving from various routes by sea and land. Some forty-two heads of jurisdictions had gathered from around the world to discuss the Order's plans for its charitable work.
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Lviv - “On my first visit to Lviv I was able to admire the monuments and churches of the city. Frankly, I did not expect to find it so artistic. I was especially impressed by the multiconfessional harmony – there are different manifestations of Christianity that are originally expressed in art,” said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi about his meeting with Ukrainian artists that took place on May 26 in the Lviv Palace of Arts.
“To create means to simulate God, to take part in a sacrament. During the ages faith and art had the same purpose – to make the invisible visible. Today these similarities are not as strong as they used to be. Certain steps need to be taken to renew them,” said Archbishop Ravasi. He dreams to organize a pavilion of the Vatican for the Venice Biennale of 2011. There is already a suggestion by a Swiss architect to create this pavilion on water in a Venetian lagoon. It will be difficult, however, to select artists who will be invited from different continents.
In this context the representative of the Vatican called Ukrainians to “make your art accessible for the world so that we may know it, read it, see it, and understand it. Send us and exhibit your creative masterpieces. Help us get to know you. It is important for me that not only Russian creations reach the Vatican. I want to popularize the culture of other nations.”
However, when asked about a specific address where it is possible to send propositions, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture admitted that so far there is not such place on the website of Vatican. But he assured that this problem will soon be resolved.
Also the archbishop informed about a film festival which takes place annually in Rome and that he will welcome young directors of any religion and origin who create on a spiritual theme. Archbishop Ravasi wishes to maintain continuous contact with the Ukrainian artists. He expressed hope that in the near future he will meet with them in the Vatican.
Information Department of the UGCC
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CWNews.com - John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter interviews Father Borys Gudziak, the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, who recently lodged a public protest against what he saw as an effort at intimidation by the country's security service. The American-born Ukrainian cleric sees a disturbing tendency toward the re-assertion of control by the nation's government: a series of steps backward toward the policies of the Soviet era.
Father Gudziak balked when he was asked by police officials to cooperate in efforts to discourage student protests. After the interview, Allen observes that the incident sheds light on a quite different topic. It shows that "Vatican ambivalence over the years about mandating cooperation with the police might have some basis other than sheer denial about the sexual abuse crisis, or the usual Roman desire to keep the church's dirty laundry under wraps."
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This Assembly is the result of the decision of the Fourth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference, which met in Chambésy Switzerland in June of 2009, after the extraordinary Synaxis of all the Heads of the Autocephalous Churches convened by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. This Assembly, one of twelve that will be convened around the world in regions where there is no single Orthodox presence, will consist of the active canonical bishops who reside in the region designated as North and Central America. In every Assembly, the chairman will be the senior bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Following a short prayer service, Archbishop Demetrios delivered his Keynote Address to the Assembly, the text of which can be found in its entirety at http://edit.goarch.org/news/addressassembly/view
Photos are available at: http://photos.goarch.org/main.php?g2_itemId=3009
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Sophia Kishkovsky
Moscow (ENI). Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I of Constantinople and Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church, seeking to overcome decades of tension, have met Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in the Kremlin.
On the same day, 25 May, Kirill and Istanbul-based Bartholomeos held talks at the Russian church leader's residence in a writer's colony outside Moscow.
The meeting with Medvedev was not originally on the schedule published on the Moscow Patriarchate's Web site for the first full official visit to Russia by Batholomeos since 1993. He had also attended the funeral of Moscow Patriarch Alexei II in December 2008.
A transcript of the public portions of the meeting, before a private lunch, was posted on the Kremlin Web site, www.kremlin.ru, and a video placed on the Moscow Patriarchate's official site, www.patriarchia.ru.
President Medvedev called Bartholomeos' visit "a very important event, and, undoubtedly, it contributes to the strengthening of the dialogue that has always existed between the two sister churches".
Medvedev and Bartholomeos also spoke of the importance of Church-State relations.
"Russia has undergone a lot of changes in recent years, to which we have all been living witnesses," said Medvedev. "You will be able to see those beneficial and favourable - in my view - changes in our country's life and in the life of our society, and in the dialogue that exists in our nation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the State."
The Russian Orthodox Church is the world's largest Orthodox church. The Ecumenical Patriarchate is often regarded as being the most important symbolically, but Moscow has chafed when the Istanbul-based Patriarch of Constantinople has been described as an Orthodox equivalent of a Roman Catholic pope.
Bartholomeos, who arrived in Moscow on 22 May and has concelebrated two feast day liturgies with Kirill, praised the Kremlin's relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church.
"We, as the mother church, are happy to see the good relations of cooperation existing between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church," said Bartholomeos. "The Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church leadership are writing a new chapter of history. The Russian society is firmly establishing itself based on its traditional moral values and Christian ideals."
The two patriarchs and the Russian president were photographed on a Kremlin rooftop overlooking its historic cathedrals. Kirill and his aides later held bilateral talks with Bartholomeos and his delegation at the Russian patriarch's residence in Peredelkino, a writer's colony near Moscow.
The Moscow Patriarchate's press service reported on 26 May that the talks "touched in particular on questions connected to preparations for a Pan-Orthodox council, inter-Christian dialogue, the organization of pastoral care of Russian-speaking believers in Turkey and the development of Orthodox pilgrimages to the Christian holy sites of ancient Byzantium".
The press service did not mention whether jurisdictional tensions in Ukraine, where some would like the Orthodox church to be independent of Moscow and under Constantinople, were a subject of discussion.
At a visit to the Danilov Monastery, the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate, on 26 May, Patriarch Bartholomeos asked the monks to pray for the reopening by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of a 19th-century theological school that was closed by Turkish authorities in 1971.
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CWNews.com - The rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University has reported that he received a visit from a representative of the state security agency-- the former KGB-- who ordered him to sign a statement acknowledging that some student protests could be interpreted as provocations, and result in criminal charges. The rector, Father Borys Gudziak, said that the official's visit was a bid at intimidation; he noted, too, that his telephone line has been tapped.
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