RECONCILIATION BETWEEN EAST AND WEST OF PRIMARY CONCERN

VATICAN CITY, NOV 23, 2001 (VIS) - The pope received this morning in the Clementine Hall the participants in the international symposium promoted by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the entering into force of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

John Paul II recalled that the symposium emphasized "the necessity to intensify fraternal relations with other Christians and, in particular, with the Orthodox Churches. ... I hope that the journey of reconciliation between the East and the West is for you a constant and primary concern, as it is for the bishop of Rome."

The Holy Father mentioned his apostolic trips to Greece, Syria, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Armenia, and affirmed that in these he saw "fulfilled the vows of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, which considers the ecclesiastical and spiritual patrimony of the Eastern Churches as a good of the entire Church. Precisely to safeguard and promote the specificity of this patrimony, on October 18, 1990 I promulgated the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which entered into force in October of the following year."

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