A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 7 Number 15 - Tuesday, April 12th, 2005 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian Laity
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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There has to be something special about a person when the global media spends days focusing on first upon his deteriorating health, and then on his passing and funeral. And theres got to be something about a person for whom 1-2 million ordinary people, a tide of humanity, line up to take a last look at his body, lying on state a line so long that people would have to wait for 24 hours just to be able to pay their last respects for a few seconds. By all accounts the late Pope John Paul II was an extraordinary leader. The relations of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the Vatican have not always been the best, and for some very good reasons. In this case, however, Pope John Paul II made some important strides in improving those strained relations. In 2001, he was the first pope to visit Greece in nearly 1,300 years. And while he was in Athens four years ago, John Paul issued a landmark apology for Roman Catholic wrongs against Orthodox Christians, and offered repeated gestures of goodwill toward Eastern Christian Churches in the twilight years of his papacy. It should therefore not come as any surprise that both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens the latter facing considerable opposition from his own Synod have announced their decision to visit Rome to pay their last respects, while the Greek State is represented by its newly elected President, Karolos Papoulias. May the new pope continue in Pope John Paul IIs footsteps for enhanced understanding between the two great Churches.
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