On Sunday December 9, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity concluded his trip in Kiev, Ukraine. He was received on December 6 by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop of the Ukraine’s Greek-Catholic Church. The following day the cardinal went with the Apostolic nuncio Msgr. Ivan Jurcoviè in Lavra, Kiev, where lives His Beatitude Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev and of all Ukraine, head of the Orthodox Ukrainian Church of the Patriarchate of Moscow. The Cardinal visited the catacombs of the martyrs of the Russian land and stopped to pray at the reliquary of the head of Saint Clement, fourth Pope of Rome, sent by the emperor together with 2000 Christians on the shores of the Black Sea in Chersonez, where he underwent martyrdom. Saint Cyril and Metodius had brought to Rome the head and the thorax of Saint Clement. The head of Saint Clement was given by Pope John XV during the baptism of the Rus’ of Kiev, in the year 988. At 12 the Cardinal met Metropolitan Vladimir, Head of the Orthodox Church of Moscow’s patriarchate which in Ukraine has 11,000 parish churches. “This holy site – the Cardinal said to the Metropolitan bishop – brings to our memory those times when there was a single undivided Church and urges us to bring our sister Churches close to one another”. In the afternoon, at the Kiyevo-Mogilanska Academy, one of the oldest Orthodox Churches in Ukraine which now belongs to the State, the Cardinal received a Honoris Causa doctorate. On that occasion, the Cardinal held a conference on the topic “The Church on its path towards full communion”. On Saturday December 8 the Cardinal blessed the “Saint Clement Ecumenical Centre: Communio and dialogue between cultures”. This research centre – established with the blessing of Cardinal Husar and His Beatitude metropolitan Vladimir – enjoys the contribution of Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Atheist scholars with the purpose of contributing to the Unity of Churches. In the afternoon the Cardinal presented the Ukrainian translation of his book “Vade mecum of Ecumenical Spirituality” and took part in the commemorative ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of Saint Thomas Aquinas Theological Institute directed by the Dominican Fathers.
