Pope hopes restitution of Orthodox church in Italy will help unity

(March 2, 2009) As Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano handed Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev an Orthodox church and pilgrim hostel in southern Italy on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI voiced hope that the restitution would help bring Christians together. Napolitano handed over a symbolic key to the buildings to Medvedev in the southern port of Bari, saying it could help ease a 1,000-year schism between Christianity's two biggest churches. In his message Pope Benedict hoped said that Bari would continue to act as a bridge between East and West. "This beautiful church reawakens in us the longing for full unity, and keeps alive our commitment to work for the unity of all the disciples of Christ," the pope said. Russia built the church in the early 20th century to welcome its pilgrims who travelled to the Adriatic sea port, to pray near the relics of Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century saint associated with Christmas and much revered by Russian Orthodox faithful. His remains are kept in the crypt of the nearby Catholic Basilica of St. Nicholas, where Orthodox rites also are celebrated. A four-year process of handing over the property rights from local authorities was accompanied by rumours that the gesture could lead to the first meeting between a Pope and a Russian Orthodox Patriarch since the churches split in the 11th century. After the fall of Communism Orthodox leaders accused the Vatican of seeking to make converts to Catholicism in the former Soviet bloc, a charge the Vatican denies.