{"id":328780,"date":"2016-12-13T04:05:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T03:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/patriarch-bartholomew-is-given-warm-welcome-in-bari-italy\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:05:53","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:05:53","slug":"patriarch-bartholomew-is-given-warm-welcome-in-bari-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/patriarch-bartholomew-is-given-warm-welcome-in-bari-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriarch Bartholomew is given warm welcome in Bari, Italy."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bari2\"\u201cYour Holiness, the <\/strong>Focolare<\/a> community of Bari salutes you with great affection! <\/strong>We are so gladdened by your visit to our city, which is a bridge between East and West and has a special ecumenical calling. Your presence encourages us to work even more at the service of the full and visible unity among Christians, and for the protection of Creation. The charism of unity<\/a> that you love so much, spurs us on to work in our own environments as apostles of dialogue <\/a>who are aware that only unity, love and brotherhood will be able to respond to the challenges of today\u2019s world.\u201d This was the welcoming message from the local Focolare community in Bari as it welcomed the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew <\/strong>on his\u00a0 December 5-6 visit to their city for the feast day of St. Nicholas. It is a \u201chighly significant ecumenical event,\u201d <\/strong>said representatives of the diocese, \u201cthat puts the Church of Bari-Bitonto on the map and contributes to dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.\u201d On December 5th, at the Basilica of St Nicholas <\/strong>the Patriarch gave the opening address for the beginning of the 2016-2017 academic school year of the Pugliese School of Theology, and received the Saint Nicholas Prize from the Ecumenical Institute. He had been awarded the Prize in recognition of his 25 years of ecumenical efforts as a \u201cpatient and courageous artisan of the culture of communion.\u201d Pope Francis <\/strong>sent a congratulatory message<\/a> that was read during the award ceremony in which he praised the efforts of the Patriarch for \u201cthe promotion of ever greater communion among those who believe in Christ.\u201d In his keynote address entitled, Adriatic and Ionian Seas of Communion,<\/em> Bartholomew <\/strong>reflected on the idea of communion, beginning from its theological significance as koinonia, <\/em>as a \u201ccommon participation of grace, love and communion in the life of God, that becomes experience itself of ‘being in relationship’.\u201d He also remembered the Great Council of Crete <\/strong>held in June 2016 when \u201cOur Holy Orthodox Church manifested its \u201ccommunion\u201d [emphasising the word] by unanimous decision of all the Patriarchs of the auto-cephalous Orthodox Churches.\u201d He also underscored the need for an economy of solidarity, <\/strong>saying that \u201cthere needs to be an economy of communion which is all embracing and which does not create social discontent in the host country.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em> On December 6th, <\/strong>at the conclusion of the solemn Eucharistic celebration, presided by Archbishop Franco Cacucci in the same Basilica, Patriarch Bartholomew gave a second talk: <\/strong>\u201cWe have also come as pilgrims to the tomb of this great saint,\u201d he said, \u201cto invoke his intercession, his prayer and his support in our Patriarchal service, to thank God with him, for our 25 years of service to the unity of the Church, on St Andrew\u2019s Throne; but also to be strong witnesses to the need of encounter among the disciples of Christ so that the world may believe, and we may one day not so far away, break the Bread of Life together and drink from the same Chalice of Salvation.\u201d Fausta Giardina and Roberto Lago, <\/strong>from the Focolare in Puglia, write: \u201cWe\u2019re breathing in a beautiful ecumenical atmosphere in our city during these days. The Patriarch\u2019s visit and the special celebrations have been heartfelt by everyone.\u201d The Focolare\u2019s friendship with the Patriarch<\/a> is longstanding. On October 26, 2016, <\/strong>Sophia University Institute<\/a>, Loppiano, conferred its <\/strong>first Honorary Doctorate in the Cult<\/a>ure of Unity<\/a> to Patriarch Bartholomew. On that occasion he said: \u201cOne of the ideals of the Focolare Movement is the unity of the Church.<\/strong> Chiara Lubich<\/a> and her collaborators did much work. She made 23 visits to [Patriarch] Athenagoras in Constantinople. Then she began to visit Dimitrios and then me. In 2008, I visited Chiara at the Gimelli Hospital a few days before her death. I\u2019m sure that she\u2019s with us this evening, with her spiritual presence and with her prayer. She rejoices with us and prays for the unity between our Churches.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gustavo Clari\u00e1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During events surrounding the feast day of St Nicholas, on December 5-6, the Italian city enjoyed its first visit from the Patriarch of Istanbul. He was awarded the Saint Nicholas Prize by the School of Theology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}