Mexico City – The spiritual leader of 200 million-plus Orthodox Christians met with Mexican Roman Catholic bishops Wednesday, working to build stronger links with the Catholic world ahead of a possible meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in November.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholome told reporters that he will “most probably,” meet with the Pope at his headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey at the feast day of St. Andrews on Nov. 30.
Batholomew’s visit here is the first ever made by an Orthodox Christian supreme leader to Mexico, the nation with the second largest number of Roman Catholics in the world after Brazil.
“I came as a messenger of love and peace,” Batholomew said.
Bartholomew will also meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox and members of Mexico’s 20,000-strong Orthodox Christian community during his six-day visit.
Both Bartholomew and the current pope appear deeply committed to bridging the rift between their estranged churches and helping to unite two of the largest branches of Christianity.
“The commitment of the Catholic Church to the search for Christian unity is irreversible,” the pope said in June.
Officials in both churches say that they need to present a united front against the growing atheism in Christian countries.
“It is very important that the church unites to make a truly spiritual block against globalization and de-Christianization,” said Mijael Garcia, an Orthodox priest from Bogota, Colombia who came to Mexico for his spiritual leader’s visit.
However, Mexican theology professor Carlos Mendoza said there are some obstacles to unity.
“Rome and Constantinople jealously guard their territories and zones of influence,” Mendoza said.
The last official talks between two churches five years ago broke off without an agreement on theological issues that have divided them for almost 1,000 years.
Rifts between the two ancient branches of Christianity began as early as the fifth century over the rising influence of the papacy and later over wording of the creed, or confession of faith. The split was sealed in 1054.
Pope John Paul II was praised by Greek religious and political leaders for his efforts to ease the division between the churches.
John Paul visited Greece in 2001, the first pope to do so in nearly 1,300 years, meeting with Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church.
