LOOK FOR WAYS FOR DEEPER COMMUNION

VATICAN CITY, SEP 19, 2003 (VIS) - Today at Castelgandolfo the Pope received a group of priests of the Greek Orthodox Church and recalled his visit with His Beatitude Christodoulos, archbishop of Athens and all Greece, and the Greek Orthodox Church during the Jubilee Year.

"We must continue to build on solid foundations the fraternal and evangelical ties that we experienced on that occasion. Your visit to Rome is a valid initiative in that sense in order to get to know and appreciate each other better and to advance relations that facilitate communion."

John Paul II assured them that he asked the Lord "constantly to prepare us to open our hearts to His prayer that 'all may be one', and to make us capable of genuine obedience to His will in order to look together for ways for closer collaboration and an ever-deeper communion."

He concluded by saying: "I hope that your visit to the holy sites of Rome, with gatherings, conversations, occasions of dialogue, may be a positive and useful experience for your priestly life. May the Holy Spirit always accompany your ministry and strengthen the testimony that each one of you gives to the Gospel of our common Lord."

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