Letter of ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew to pope Francis
Feast of St Peter and St Paul
With confident anticipation, we now contemplate our mutual journey to the common cup
29 June 2013
Feast of St Peter and St Paul
His Holiness and Beatitude Pope Francis of Senior Rome: rejoice in the Lord.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:3-4) is also our confession from the most holy Church of Constantinople-New Rome with Peter the chief of the Apostles, even as we address a wholehearted fraternal greeting and festive embrace to Your esteemed and beloved Holiness on this auspicious day of celebration in honour of the holy
Apostles Peter and Paul, which marks the Patronal Feast of Your venerable Church of Rome.
In continuation of this tradition, the Ecumenical Patriarchate participates once again this year in the joy that on this day you adorn for the first time the Throne of the ancient Church of Rome of Your Holiness. Therefore, it delights with You and Your devout faithful on the occasion of the feast of
these two holy Apostles, expressing the expectation and hope that the overtures of Your Holiness toward simplicity and charity, universally received with a sense of gratitude and gratification, will profoundly nurture the Church and orient its attitude toward the essential dimensions of lawfulness, justice and mercy, in accordance with the doctrines and demands of its founder, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has truly called us all “to a living hope.”
The well and widely known position of Your Holiness on these issues of simplicity and charity proved very moving. Moreover, it is also true that the Church of Christ and its members have always been inspired by the very same ideas and principles of charity and simplicity. Contemporary Christian communities are replete with philanthropic and beneficent institutions and individuals; nonetheless, the needs are also plentiful, particularly in our age – and age of financial crisis and challenge, but also a crisis of values and institutions – which is precisely why we must constantly motivate people’s charitable sensitivities in order to respond to and resolve problems of poverty.