Orthodox delegation welcomed for Vatican feast
Vatican, Jun. 27 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) will preside at a Eucharistic celebration in the Vatican basilica on June 29 for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The Pope reminded his Angelus audience on Sunday, June 26, that a special delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople will participate in the event.
The feast of Sts. Peter and Paul is the patronal feast of the Rome diocese, and the date of the annual ceremony in which the Pope imposes the pallium on the archbishops who have been appointed to that office during the past year. These new metropolitan archbishops will concelebrate Mass with the Pope and Cardinal Angelo Sodano (bio - news), the dean of the College of Cardinals.
Each year the Patriarch of Constantinople sends a delegation of prelates to Rome for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, as a gesture of ecumenical unity. (The Vatican, in turn, sends a delegation to Istanbul for the patronal feast of St. Andrew on November 30.) In 2004, Patriarch Bartholomew himself headed the Orthodox delegation, in an exceptional show of affection for Pope John Paul II (bio - news).
In his remarks to his Sunday audience, Pope Benedict said that the ceremony on Wednesday will provide "a significant occasion to recall the unity and catholicity of the Church." He asked the faithful to pray for the Church and her pastors on that day.
The pallium-- a thin white woolen vestment worn around the shoulders to signify the authority of a metropolitan-- will be imposed upon the new archbishops at the Altar of Confession in St. Peter's Basilica. The vestment symbolizes the unity among the world's archbishops, and their unity with the Holy See. Pope Benedict himself received the pallium on April 24, during the Mass formally inaugurating his pontificate, from the senior deacon of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez. During the ceremonies in the Vatican basilica last year, Pope John Paul II remarked that "the sign of the pallium expresses the fundamental principle of communion" among the Church's leaders.
Among the prominent prelates receiving the pallium on June 29 will be Archbishops Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris and Stanislas Dziwisz of Krakow.