Furthering the dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox

The annual week of prayer for Christian unity marks a moment to review ecumenical achievements of the past year and look ahead to some of the highlights of the coming months. Philippa Hitchen spoke with the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Bishop Brian Farrell about his hopes for the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue..

LIsten:

“We are very close to the Orthodox theologically….so the theological difference between us is almost totally concentrated on this one question of structure, authority, primacy in the church. In the dialogue we have reached the point where we all accept that there is a primacy, that this belong to the bishop of Rome, but we don’t agree on how it is to be exercised…..

One of the things that is on the horizon is the anniversary of the Edict of Milan which changed the course of the history of the church…….so this will be an important occasion. Catholics and Orthodox have a slightly different view of Constantine…..there will be celebrations in many countries, in particular, yes, in Serbia where he was born and we’re looking forward to be able to take part in these together…….I don’t think we should make (a meeting with the Pope and the Russian Patriarch) a definite objective of the celebrations – as you know, the preparation of such a meeting depends not just on goodwill but also on how effective we can be in overcoming some of the tensions that still exist between Catholics and Orthodox."