Coptic Church & Ecumenical Movement - Saint Mina Coptic ...

POPE SHENOUDA III’S ADDRESS TO POPE PAUL VI
May 5th, 1973
Your Holiness,
We feel happy, to meet today Your Holiness as the Supreme Head of the Roman
Catholic Church in Christendom and to exchange with Your Holiness the holy kiss of
peace, and to be in Rome, the great cosmopolitan city of vast and long history which
definitely has left its print on the course of human history. The importance of Rome is
not exclusively civic, as it had been for a long period the capital of the Roman Empire.
Its spiritual Superior, the Roman Pontiff, has had and still has a guiding role along the
history of the Christian Church.
Here we wish to express our cordial gratitude to Your Holiness for Your kind invitation
to us to come here to Rome and to the Vatican City and to enjoy this happy occasion of
meeting each other.
We pray humbly that this meeting would have its far-reaching results in supporting and
strengthening the friendly relations between our two Apostolic Churches.
We grasp the opportunity to thank you for the facilities Your Holiness has given to us
and for the efforts your most venerable men have exerted, namely, their Eminences, their
Excellencies and the Reverend Fathers among whom those who have received us at the
airport and those who will accompany us during our stay in the Vatican City and Rome
as guests of Your Holiness. We mention with great esteem the good amiable spirit of
His Excellency the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio in Cairo; all those respectable men who did
their best to make our trip an easy one and who, I am sure, will do their best as well to
make our stay here in Rome and in the Vatican City most comfortable and pleasant until
we go back to Cairo, carrying with us the holy relic of St. Athanasius the Great, the
Apostolic, and with it the affections of love, esteem and endearment to Your Holiness.
Once more we thank Your Holiness in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and we extend
to Your Holiness our cordial invitation to come to Egypt, that Your Holiness might see
our beautiful country, of long glorious history, our religious archaic places and
antiquities and our land once blessed by the flight of our Lord and our Lady into Egypt
and recently by the apparitions of St. Mary at Zeitoun.
May the love of Christ bring us more and more together.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and thoughts in
Christ Jesus and in His service, blamelessly and void of offence, till the Day of His
appearing. Now unto Him be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and
now, and for evermore. Amen.
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