Light and Tears: Benedict XVI in Istanbul

[Editor's note: This coverage of the pope's visit to Istanbul is made possible by exclusive arrangement with Inside the Vatican Magazine.]

Benedict XVI, arriving in Istanbul on the second day of his four-day trip to Turkey, was received with honor by the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch, Bartholomew.

In the end, it was the light. And the tears.

Those are the things that linger in my mind.

The light of five great chandeliers this evening lit the nave of the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George with a marvelous, festive, welcoming, luminosity.

From the balcony in the back of the church, I watched as Pope Benedict XVI passed below me, walking slowly down the aisle side-by-side with Patriarch Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox, as photographers and reporters (including my friends and colleagues Grzegorz Galazka and Serena Sartini) aimed their cameras and craned their necks to catch the moment before it fled into the past.

And so, beneath the light from half a thousand bulbs caught, multiplied and passed on by a thousand crystalline pendants hanging from the chandeliers, a symbolic meeting of Eastern and Western Christianity took place here today, on the vigil of the Feast of St. Andrew, in the tiny Phanar section of Istanbul where the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew resides.

 "Orthodoxy Still Lives"

The elderly woman standing next to me on the balcony in the back of the church bows her head. A tear rolls down one cheek, then the other.

"I can't believe I'm here," she whispers to me, so as not to disturb the others gathered on the balcony, watching as the cardinals and bishops take their places on each side of the pope and patriarch at the front of the church.

I ask her name. She tells me she is Victoria Moskos, that her husband is an "Archon," a pious American Greek Orthodox who is a key financial supporter of the Greek Orthodox Church. (Being named an Archon is the highest award a Greek Orthodox layman can receive.) She and her husband have come together with a hundred other Archons to be present at this moment in the heart of Istanbul.

"This moment in my life I will treasure until the day I die," she whispers, as the choir chants its welcoming hymn to the pope in Greek. "It's such a privilege to see the pope come into our church. I keep thinking: ‘It is really happening, after all.' And: ‘Thank you, God! Even though they have tried to suppress everything, Orthodoxy still lives.'"

I suppose that if one were to summarize in three words the message Benedict wanted to convey by making this visit to Bartholomew, who presides over a church which is so hemmed in and encircled by a web of Turkish government restrictions that its very future is in doubt, it would be this: "Orthodoxy still lives."

Victoria turns toward me, and looks at the word "Archon" on the pass I am wearing around my neck. The pass has enabled me to get successfully through the very strict Turkish government controls and enter the church, while most of the Vatican press corps, which has been traveling with the pope in Ankara and Ephesus (where the pope visited the house where the Virgin Mary is believed to have lived the last years of her life) has been kept outside due to lack of space. Without it, I would never have been admitted to this ceremony.

A puzzled look passes across her face. "Are you an Archon? I don't recognize you. You don't look Greek…"

"No, I'm not Greek," I reply. "I'm a writer. But by my writing, I try to do what your Archons do, for your church."

"Oh," she says, very quietly, and pauses for a moment. "I see. Well, if you could help us by your writing, you would truly be a blessing to our church."

What purpose can a few words of writing serve? Our world is full of words today, so many that silence may be more meaningful – the silence of a woman's tears as she witnesses the meeting of two Christians beneath the light of five glowing chandeliers.

Here follow the two addresses spoken yesterday, the first by the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the second by Pope Benedict XVI. [Text issued by the Holy See, © Copyright 2006, Libreria Editrice Vaticana]

Address of the Patriarch

Welcome by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI after the Prayer Service at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George

Your Holiness, beloved Brother in the Lord,

It is with sentiments of sincere joy and satisfaction that we welcome you to the sacred and historical city of Istanbul.

This is a city that has known a treasured heritage for the growth of the Church through the ages. It is here that St. Andrew, the "first-called" of the Apostles founded the local Church of Byzantium and installed St. Stachys as its first bishop. It is here that the Emperor and "equal-to-the-Apostles," St. Constantine the Great, established the New Rome. It is here that the Great Councils of the early Church convened to formulate the Symbol of Faith. It is here that martyrs and saints, bishops and monks, theologians and teachers, together with a "cloud of witnesses" confessed what the prophets saw, what the apostles taught, what the church received, what the teachers formulated in doctrine, what the world understood, what grace has shone, namely…the truth that was received, the faith of the fathers. This is the faith of the Orthodox. This faith has established the universe.

So it is with open embrace that we welcome you on the blessed occasion of your first visit to the City, just as our predecessors, Ecumenical Patriarchs Athenagoras and Demetrios, had welcomed your predecessors, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. These venerable men of the Church sensed the inestimable value and urgent need alike of such encounters in the process of reconciliation through a dialogue of love and truth.

Therefore, we are, both of us, as their successors and as successors to the Thrones of Rome and New Rome equally accountable for the steps – just, of course, as we are for any missteps – along the journey and in our struggle to obey the command of our Lord, that His disciples "may be one."

It was in this spirit that, by the grace of God, we visited repeatedly Rome and two years ago in order to accompany the relics of Saints Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, formerly Archbishops of this City, whose sacred remains were generously returned to this Patriarchal Cathedral by the late Pope. It was in this spirit, too, that we traveled to Rome only months later to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul.

We are deeply grateful to God that Your Holiness has taken similar steps today in the same spirit. We offer thanks to God in doxology and express thanks also to Your Holiness in fraternal love.

Beloved Brother, welcome. "Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord."

"Blessed is the Name of the Lord now and forevermore."

The Holy Father's Response

Response of Benedict XVI to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity" (Ps 133:1)

Your Holiness,

I am deeply grateful for the fraternal welcome extended to me by you personally, and by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. I will treasure its memory forever. I thank the Lord for the grace of this encounter, so filled with authentic goodwill and ecclesial significance.

It gives me great joy to be among you, my brothers in Christ, in this Cathedral Church, as we pray together to the Lord and call to mind the momentous events that have sustained our commitment to work for the full unity of Catholics and Orthodox. I wish above all to recall the courageous decision to remove the memory of the anathemas of 1054. The joint declaration of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras, written in a spirit of rediscovered love, was solemnly read in a celebration held simultaneously in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome and in this Patriarchal Cathedral. The Tomos of the Patriarch was based on the Johannine profession of faith: "Ho Theós agapé estin" (1 Jn 4:9), Deus caritas est! In perfect agreement, Pope Paul VI chose to begin his own Brief with the Pauline exhortation: "Ambulate in dilectione" (Eph 5:2), "Walk in love." It is on this foundation of mutual love that new relations between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople have developed.

Signs of this love have been evident in numerous declarations of shared commitment and many meaningful gestures. Both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II were warmly received as visitors in this Church of Saint George, and joined respectively with Patriarchs Athenagoras I and Dimitrios I in strengthening the impetus towards mutual understanding and the quest of full unity. May their names be honored and blessed!

I also rejoice to be in this land so closely connected to the Christian faith, where many Churches flourished in ancient times. I think of Saint Peter's exhortations to the early Christian communities "in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Pet 1:1), and the rich harvest of martyrs, theologians, pastors, monastics, and holy men and women which those Churches brought forth over the centuries.

I likewise recall the outstanding saints and pastors who have watched over the See of Constantinople, among them Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint John Chrysostom, whom the West also honors as Doctors of the Church. Their relics rest in the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican, and a part of them were given to Your Holiness as a sign of communion by the late Pope John Paul II for veneration in this very Cathedral. Truly, they are worthy intercessors for us before the Lord.

In this part of the Eastern world were also held the seven Ecumenical Councils which Orthodox and Catholics alike acknowledge as authoritative for the faith and discipline of the Church. They are enduring milestones and guides along our path towards full unity.

I conclude by expressing once more my joy to be with you. May this meeting strengthen our mutual affection and renew our common commitment to persevere on the journey leading to reconciliation and the peace of the Churches.

I greet you in the love of Christ. May the Lord be always with you.

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