Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew have today issued a landmark joint declaration from the Phanar, calling for full communion between “our sister Churches.”
In a statement which brings the world's 300 million Orthodox and 1.4 billion Catholics together, the two prelates expressed hope that the two Churches might one day share in the unity prayer for by Jesus in John 17:20 when he asks “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
They also committed themselves to sustained theological dialogue aimed at overcoming “obstacles that prevent the restoration of full communion”, and called for “new and courageous steps” in that direction.
