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

POPE SHENOUDA III’S ADDRESS AT THE CONCLUSION OF HIS VISIT TO
POPE PAUL VI AND TO THE CHURCH OF ROME
May 10th, 1973
The visit of His Holiness Pope Shenouda III concluded on May 10. At noon Pope Paul
went to the Tower of St. John in the Vatican Gardens, where his guest had been staying
during his visit. Pope Shenouda III addressed the Holy Father in these words:
Beloved Brother in Christ,
On the last day of our happy stay in Rome and in the Vatican City and on the occasion of
our leave taking, we have the pleasure to thank Your Holiness, not only in our own name
but also in the name of our brothers in the episcopate, the metropolitans and bishops our
companions, together with the priests and laity, but also in the name of the whole Church
of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark.
We, from a full heart, thank Your Holiness for all the brotherly love your highly
esteemed person has graciously shown towards us and for all the welcome and kind
reception with which we have been received in Rome and in the Vatican City since the
very moment of our arrival, from the part of Your Holiness and from the part of their
Eminences the Cardinals, their Excellencies the archbishops and bishops and the other
prelates of the Roman Curia and the reverend priests, among whom those who have
received us at the Airport and those who have accompanied us and those who have
welcomed us with joy and love in Your magnificent and splendid Basilicas and gracious
monasteries and other holy and historical places.
We especially mention with profound acknowledgment the efforts and the pains of the
Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. We shall not forget how we were moved with
reverence and spiritual emotions at seeing churches and monasteries built on sites that
had been irrigated with the holy blood of the martyrs of the Church who gave their lives
for the sake of the Gospel as witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We very much admire the activities and the scholarly work of the staff of the theological
institutes and research centres working in Rome, compiling books of deep and thorough
investigations.
Once more and from our inmost soul, we present very many thanks to Your Holiness for
Your invaluable present of the relic of St. Athanasius the Apostolic, the great father and
doctor of the Universal Church, the herald of Orthodoxy against Arianism, the champion
of truth who gave his life and fought the good fight in defence of the divinity of Christ.
We cannot express in words how our clergy and people in Egypt would rejoice at our
return with the relic of St. Athanasius. For this and for Your Holiness’s previous most
precious present of the relic of St. Mark you gave to our Church in 1968, our gratitude is
unspeakable.
We grasp the opportunity to lift up our hearts to the Almighty so that He may deepen our
love in Him towards one another and strengthen the bonds of brotherly affections
between our two apostolic Churches and that He may render success to the joint
commission representing our Churches we are setting up to guide common studies
leading to the full unity of the Church.
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