The Millennium complex in Antioch, comprising 17 apartments for the elderly and the poor and 2 large rooms for recreational and cultural activities, in large part financed by Italian Caritas, will be inaugurated in the Turkish city on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. The ecumenical dimension of the feast will be emphasized by the celebration of Vespers in the Orthodox church, followed by a performance of the “rainbow choir” composed of Sunnis, Jews, Catholics, Orthodox and Armenians. But the high point of the celebrations will be at the grotto of St. Peter on 29 June, where a liturgy of the Orthodox Church will take place. The celebration will be presided over by Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne together with the Apostolic Nuncio in Turkey, Monsignor Antonio Lucibello and the Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia Monsignor Luigi Padovese. According to tradition, the grotto of Peter is the place where “the disciples were for the first time called Christians”. For the feast of Saints Peter and Paul a delegation of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople will be in Rome to repay the visit of its Catholic counterpart on 30 November, feast of St. Andrew.
