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Published by International Herald Tribune
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Friday, 29 September 2006 |
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"Sailing to Byzantium">Sailing to Byzantium" "So what is keeping them apart? Over the centuries, the disagreement between the two communions has mainly focused on papal claims to authority and precedence. Significantly, Benedict dispensed with the traditional papal title Patriarch of the West at his election - as though to remove that difficulty. The pope is 79 and in poor health. He knows that he won't live to see his dream of a re-evangelized Europe come true. But the first step in that agenda - unity with the Eastern Orthodox communion - appears within his grasp. His reference to the beleaguered Byzantine emperor Manuel II will have been understood by the world's 240 million Eastern Orthodox Christians as a dramatic gesture of solidarity. I believe it was a calculated risk. In November the pope will meet Patriarch Bartholomew I, and no doubt he will receive a warm welcome. "
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