ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Sermon preached by His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew in Rome for the Feast of St Peter and St Paul 2008

Your Holiness,
Having again experienced, in November 2006, the joy and emotion of the personal and blessed participation of Your Holiness in the patronal feast of Constantinople, the commemoration of the St. Andrew the Apostle, the First Called, I set out "with a joyous step" from Phanar in the New Rome, to come to you to participate in your joy in the patronal feast of Old Rome. And we have come to you "with the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ" (Romans 15:29), returning the honour and love, celebrating with our beloved brother in the land of the West, "the certain and inspired heralds, the coryphaei of the disciples of the Lord," the holy apostles Peter, brother of Andrew, and Paul -- these two great, central pillars of the whole Church stretched out toward heaven, which, in this historic city, also offered the ultimate shining confession of Christ and gave their souls to the Lord here through martyrdom, one on the cross and the other by the sword, and thus sanctified this city.

We greet, with the deepest and most devoted love, on the part of the Most Holy Church of Constantinople and her children throughout the world, You Holiness, desired brother, wishing from the heart "those who live in Rome beloved of God" (Romans 1:7), good health, peace, prosperity and progress day and night toward salvation "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, joyful in hope, strong in tribulation, steadfast in prayer" (Romans 12:11-12).

In both Churches, Your Holiness, we duly honor and greatly venerate Peter -- he who made his salvific confession of the divinity of Christ, as much as Paul -- the vessel of election, who proclaimed this confession and faith to the ends of the universe in the midst of the most unimaginable difficulties and dangers. Since the year of salvation 258 we have celebrated their memory in the West and in the East on June 29. In the East we also prepare for this feast by a fast observed in their honor on the preceding days, following a tradition of the ancient Church. To strongly emphasize their equal importance, but also their weight in the Church and her regenerative and salvific work through the centuries, the East honors them in an icon in which they either hold a little ship in their hands, which symbolizes the Church, or they embrace and exchange the kiss in Christ.

It is indeed this kiss that we have come to exchange with you, Your Holiness, emphasizing the ardent desire and love in Christ, things which are closely related to each other. The theological dialogue between our Churches "in faith, truth and love," thanks to divine help, goes forward despite the considerable difficulties that exist and the well-known problems. We truly desire and fervently pray that these difficulties will be overcome and that the problems will disappear as soon as possible so that we may reach the desired final goal for the glory of God.

We know well that this is your desire too, as we also are certain that Your Holiness will neglect nothing, personally working, together with your illustrious collaborators, through a perfect smoothing of the way, toward a positive fulfilment of the labours of dialogue, God willing.
Your Holiness, we too have proclaimed the year 2008 "Year of the Apostle Paul" on the 2,000th. anniversary of the great apostle's birth. In regard to the events of the anniversary celebration, in which we have also venerated the precise place of the St. Paul's martyrdom, we are planning, among others things, a sacred pilgrimage to some of the monuments of the apostolic activity of the apostle in the East: Ephesus, Perga, and other cities in Asia Minor, but also Rhodes and Crete, the places called "good ports." Be assured, Your Holiness, that on this sacred journey, you too will be present, walking with us in spirit, and that in each place we will offer up an ardent prayer for you and our brothers of the venerable Roman Catholic Church, fervently asking the divine Paul's intercession with the Lord for you.

And now, venerating the sufferings and the cross of Peter and embracing Paul's chains and stigmata, honouring the confession and martyrdom and the venerable death of both for the name of the Lord, which truly leads to Life, we glorify the Thrice-Holy God and we supplicate him, so that through the intercession of Saints Peter and Paul, who are his Protocoryphaei and Aostles, he will, here below, grant us and all his children of the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world "union of faith and communion in the Spirit" in the "bond of peace" and there above eternal life and great mercy. Amen.