Ecumenical Patriarch: We await the restoration of full communion with the Church of Rome

Addressing participants in the 27th International Congress of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches in Budapest, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew welcomed the inauguration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s new Orthodox Christian Dialogue Centre, “Fanarion.” He described the centre as “a permanent home for inter-Orthodox, inter-Christian and inter-faith encounter” and expressed the hope that it would become a “true workshop of ‘juridical ecumenism.’”

Focusing on the congress theme, “The Bishop of Rome: Future Horizons from Ancient Traditions for Catholics and Orthodox,” Bartholomew recalled Joseph Ratzinger’s principle that “Rome cannot demand from the East more of a doctrine of primacy than what was formulated and lived in the first millennium.” He further highlighted Patriarch Athenagoras’s description of the Pope of Rome as “the one presiding in love,” explaining that Orthodox tradition understands Roman primacy as a form of loving service exercised “within, and never above, the communion of sister Churches.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch also welcomed the restoration of the title “Patriarch of the West” in 2024, calling it “a small but far from insignificant step”…