His Beatitude Teoctist, patriarch of the Roman Orthodox Church, is visiting Rome. Highlights of the visit will be the meeting with the Pope on Saturday, 12 October, during which the Holy Father and Patriarch Teoctist will sign a series of bilateral documents, and especially the celebration of the eucharistic liturgy in St. Peter’s on Sunday, 13 October. “Your visit to Rome represents a purifying act of our memories of division, of often heated confrontation, of actions and words that have led to painful separations”, exclaimed the Holy Father in Romanian, on receiving the Patriarch during the audience granted on 7 October to the pilgrims who had flocked to Rome for the canonization of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. The Romanian Patriarch, looking at the crowds of people thronging St. Peter’s Square, declared: “This image of the pilgrims present here from all over the world urges and encourages us to work yet more intensively for the unity of the Church of Christ”. In 1999, John Paul II visited Romania, where 87% of the population is Orthodox, 6% Latin Catholics, and 3% Greek-Catholics. The visit of Patriarch Teoctis is being followed with close attention by the Romanian Orthodox community in Italy.
