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Turkey is a country with an overwhelming Islamic majority and 29 June is not a festivity there. Nonetheless the Turkish Catholic Church will be meeting in various places of worship to pray for the Holy Father, on the day when the Church of Rome celebrates its Patron Saints, the apostles Peter and Paul. And as a part of the universal Church, the Turkish Church too will join in the collection of peter’s pence. But there is another tradition that gives an ecumenical dimension to this solemnity: the visit of the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to Rome repaying that of the Holy See to Istanbul on 30 November, feast of St. Andrew, patron of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the “brotherly relationship” between the apostles Peter and Andrew “the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople feel themselves to be sisters in a special way”. Benedict XVI reminded us of this during his general audience on Wednesday 14 June, which was focused on the mission of St. Andrew, “the first of the Apostles to be called to follow Jesus”. It is just on this basis, said the Pope, that “the liturgy of the Byzantine Church honours him with the appellative Protóklitos , the first-called”. The Pope’s words herald the historic visit he is due to pay to Turkey in November this year (28-30), a visit during which the relations between the two Churches could be further reinforced. It seems – though the news awaits official confirmation – that in the course of his apostolic journey to Turkey, the Church of Rome and the Patriarchate of Constantinople will sign a joint declaration on Christian unity. This is a gesture that would be added to previous ecumenical gestures: that of Paul VI who in 1964 restored the relics of St. Andrew to the Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of the city of Patras (Greece), where, according to the tradition, the Apostle was crucified; and the embrace of the same Pope with Patriarch Athenagoras I (7 December 1965) which wiped from the collective memory the sentences of excommunication issued in the year 1054. Another “concrete step” in ecumenical dialogue was made only recently: namely, the re-activation, after a pause of five years, of the “International Mixed Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole”, decided in September 2005, with the convening of the Commission’s “Mixed Committee of Coordination”. And other steps forward could be taken on the wave of Benedict’s visit to Turkey, aimed at reinforcing the common commitment of the Churches in the field of the defence of life and of the family. Positive signals are not reaching us from Europe in these fields. It is not enough to have Christian roots. Belgium, Holland and Spain, just to cite some countries of Catholic tradition, have adopted laws that aim to weaken such institutions as marriage and the family. Not to mention the European Parliament’s recent approval of EU funding of research on embryonal stem cells. The inter-religious dimension, and hence Islam, cannot be excluded from the dialogue between our Churches. The possible future entry of Turkey into the European Union could give further importance to the action of the Churches in these fields. Respect for the family and the defence of life are moral riches that this country could bring as a gift to the Old Continent. Pope John XXIIII, during his ten years’ residence in Turkey, understood this very well and in his “Journal of the Soul” wrote of his love for the Turkish people and of his conviction of their place in civilization.
