The statement, signed in October in Ravenna by Orthodox and Catholic leaders about ecclesial communion, conciliarism and authority, is "a positive and significant step forward in dialogue, since it provides "a firm basis for the future discussion of the issue of the primacy within the Church on a universal scale". But "many" are the "difficult issues that need explaining". This is the double reading one of hope as well as one of awareness of a still-long way to go that ends the "Ravenna Document", discussed and "unanimously" approved by the members of the "International Joint Commission for theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church". The text has been officially disclosed today, even if it had already been published in English by the agency "Europaica" of the Russian Patriarchate to Strasbourg and therefore previewed today by some mass media. The document consists of 46 sections, and the final section addresses the crucial point of the Pope’s primacy. Section 41 states that Orthodox and Catholics "agree" on the fact that "Rome, as the Church that ‘presides in charity’", was "first" in the canon order at the time of the undivided Church. (continued)
