VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI receives His Beatitude Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, they sign a Common Declaration: “It is our common responsibility to overcome, in love and truth, the many difficulties and sad experience of the past”.

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Pope Benedict XVI in his address to His Beatitude Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, received in audience in the Vatican on December 14th, said “Greece and Rome intensified their relations at the dawn of Christianity and continued their relations which gave rise to various forms of communities and Christian traditions in the regions of the world which today correspond to Eastern and Western Europe. These intense relations helped create a sort of osmosis in the formation of ecclesial institutions. This osmosis - maintaining the disciplinary, liturgical, theological and spiritual differences of both traditions Roman and Greek - rendered fruitful the Church’s evangelising activity and the inculturation of the Christian faith”.
The Pope underlined: “Today our relations continue slowly but in profundity and with a concern for authenticity. They are for us an opportunity to rediscover a whole range of spiritual expressions rich in significance and reciprocal commitment”. The Pope mentioned “the memorable visit” which John Paul II made to Athens in 2001, "a determinant point in the progressive intensification of our contact and collaboration”, followed by exchange of visits of delegations of priests and students, such as the fruitful collaboration between the Apostolikì Diakonia and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
With regard to the future Pope Benedict XVI said he saw a vast field in which collaboration may grow and become more intense, in particular to build a new Europe which “can never be exclusively an economic reality”. “Catholics and Orthodox - the Pope said - are called to offer their cultural and above all spiritual contribution. They have the duty to defend the Christian roots of the Continent of Europe...so Christian tradition may continue to be seen and to operate with all its forces to safeguard the dignity of the human person, respect for minorities, taking care to avoid cultural uniformity which could cause the loss of immense riches of civilisation. At the same time we must work to protect human rights, which include the principal of personal freedom, especially religious freedom; these rights must be promoted and defended in the European Union and in every member country”.
Pope Benedict XVI concluded underlining the need to increase collaboration among Christians in every country in the European Union to “deal with new dangers facing the Christian faith, growing secularism, relativism and nihilism, which open the way for behaviour and even legislation which violate the inalienable dignity of the human person and threaten fundamental institutions such as marriage”.
After the address given by His Beatitude Christodoulos, in which the Archbishop thanked God for the encounter and opportunity to “take another step on the Churches’ common path to tackle the problems of the world today”, the Pope and His Beatitude signed a common declaration which began as follows: “We Benedict XVI, Pope and Bishop of Rome, and Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, in this holy place of Rome, made illustrious with the evangelical preaching and martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul, wish to live ever more intensely our mission to give apostolic witness and hand on the faith to those near and far and to announce the Good News of the birth of the Saviour... It is our common responsibility to overcome, in love and truth, the many difficulties and sad experience of the past, for the glory of God, in the Holy Trinity and of his Holy Church”.
The Declaration is articulated in 12 points which reveal a determination to: continue dialogue in truth to rebuild full communion of faith in the bond of love; recognise important progress in the dialogue of charity and thanks to the decisions of Vatican II with regard to relations between Churches: underline the need to persevere on the path of constructive dialogue; confirm commitment to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, the new generation especially; it stress the role of religions to make peace triumph in the world; expresses concern for experiments on human beings and loss of respect for life in every stage; call for more protection for human rights all over the world, founded on the dignity of the person created in the image of God; propose fecund collaboration to help rediscover the Christian roots of the continent of Europe; invite rich countries to show solidarity with less advantaged countries and to avoid indiscriminate exploitation of creation, the work of God’s hands, instead to care for it with justice and with concern for people suffering from hunger. The Holy Father and the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece conclude the document imploring from God “the gift of peace, in charity and unity of the human family". (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 15/12/2006 - Righe 57, parole 832)