Church leaders have cautiously welcomed a document issued by a joint Roman Catholic-Orthodox commission dealing with the papacy
Church leaders have cautiously welcomed a document issued by a joint Roman Catholic-Orthodox commission dealing with the papacy, among other things, as an important move towards overcoming a 950-year rift between the two Christian traditions. "We must be clear this is only a first step, a modest step" said Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, after the 14 November publication of the document agreed at a meeting the previous month in Ravenna in northern Italy. A central issue considered at the 8-14 October meeting of the Catholic-Orthodox theological commission concerned the role of the papacy, one of the issues that led to the schism between the two Christian traditions in AD 1054.
