For the opening of the Pauline Year dedicated to the Apostle of People on the second millennium of his birth, Saturday June 28 at 6 pm, in the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, Benedict XVI will celebrate the first Vespers of the day of Saints Peter and Paul, attended by the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I and some brotherly delegates of other churches and ecclesial communities having historical or geographical relations with Saint Paul. The patriarch, who will meet the Pope during a private audience on the morning of June 28, will come with the metropolitan bishop Gennadios, Orthodox archbishop of Italy and Malta, exarch for Southern Europe, the metropolitan bishop Ioannis of Pergamus (Co-President of the "International Joint Committee for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole"); archbishop Antonios of Hierapolis, of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the United States, plus a group of about 70 dignitaries, mostly from the United States. On Sunday 29 June, after Mass with Benedict XVI, the ecumenical patriarch will go to the Church of San Teodoro Megalomartire in Rome to meet the Orthodox community and celebrate the Vespers. (continued)
