Pope Francis is encouraging Catholic and Orthodox Christians not only to engage in further theological dialogue, but also to promote joint initiatives on issues such as caring for the environment, peaceful coexistence among peoples, and the presence of Christians in the Middle East, without waiting for the day of full and visible communion, the Independent Catholic website reports today (December 1, 2017).
The Pope made the exhortation in a message to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on the November 30 feast of St. Andrew, the patron of the Patriarchate.
The Ecumenical Patriarch is regarded as the "first among equals" in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians.
The growing estrangement from the 5th to the 11th century between the Byzantine Church based in Constantinople and the Rome-based Catholic Church came to a head with the Great Schism of 1054, which split the followers of Christ into Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism.
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