“So that they may be one” – theme of Pope’s Holy Land visit

March 14, 2014 - “Ut Unum Sint”, the Latin for “So that they may be one,” is the theme that Pope Francis has chosen for his 3-day pastoral visit to the Holy Land this May. The Vatican on Friday released the theme along with the logo depicting Christ and a disciple in a boat.

On first announcing the Holy Land trip on Jan 5^th, Pope Francis had explained that the May 24-26 visit to Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem will be to commemorate 50 years of the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and the spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, which took place on Jan. 5, 1964, in Jerusalem. Pope Francis said that his visit would include an Ecumenical Meeting at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with the representatives of the Christian Churches of Jerusalem, along with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the spiritual head of Orthodozx Christians worldwide. After over 9 centuries of mutual hostility, excommunication and isolation between Catholics and Orthodox, relations began to warm up after the 1964 meeting.