Italian Catholic and Orthodox prelates gathered in Venice yesterday to mark the 60th anniversary of the joint declaration of Pope St. Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople. The declarations lifted the mutual excommunications pronounced by their predecessors at the beginning of the East-West Schism (1054).
Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi (president of the Italian Episcopal Conference), Patriarch Francesco Moraglia of Venice, and Metropolitan Polykarpos (the Greek Orthodox primate of Italy) took part in the commemoration.