Ecumenical patriarch to travel to Vatican to retrieve holy relics
ISTANBUL, Turkey The spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians will travel to Rome next month on a historic mission to the Vatican. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew the First will retrieve the relics of two saints seized by Crusaders 800 years ago. Orthodox Church officials see the move as a historic step toward reconciliation between the two churches.
Pope John Paul will hand over the relics at a ceremony November 27th in St. Peter's Basilica. Vatican officials are expected to accompany the relics during their return to Istanbul.
Bartholomew and John Paul have both emphasized reconciliation between the two churches, split since 1054.
Christianity split into Western and Eastern branches in the eleventh century over the growing power of the papacy, an issue that remains a principal source of division.
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