His Holiness Patriarch Alexy meets President of the Commission on Ecumenism and Dialogue of the Italian Episcopal Conference Bishop Vincenzo Paglia

On 29 March 2006, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia met in his working residence in Chisty pereulok in Moscow with Bishop Vincenzo Paglia of Terni-Narni-Amelia, President of the Commission on Ecumenism and Dialogue of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

Taking part in the meeting were deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations (DECR MP) Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin and DECR MP secretary for inter-Christian relations Rev. Igor Vyzhanov.

His Holiness Patriarch Alexy awarded Bishop Vincenzo Paglia with the Order of the Holy and Right-Believing Prince Daniel, 3^rd class, in consideration of his contribution to the development of dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Russian Orthodox Churches and Bishop’s 60^th birthday. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church congratulated the guest on his jubilee and wished him good health, many years of life and God’s help.

‘We have known you as a friend of the Russian Orthodox Church who has exerted many efforts for establishing good relations between our Churches and for developing Orthodox-Catholic dialogue’, His Holiness said. He appreciated the level of relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Italian Episcopal Conference in which Bishop Vincenzo Paglia of Terni-Narni-Amelia leads the Commission on Ecumenism and Dialogue. His Holiness highly appreciated the activities of a peacemaking and charitable organization ‘St. Egidio community’, in which Bishop Paglia serves as father confessor.

‘I am convinced that our relationship gives to the world a wonderful example of cooperation between the Orthodox and the Catholics’, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church underscored. He thinks that conducive to it are common positions on such urgent matters as the preaching of spiritual foundations of the life of society, strengthening of Christian ethics, protection of family values as well as solution of the problems of bioethics.

Bishop Vincenzo Paglia said that dialogue between the St. Egidio community and the Russian Orthodox Church had begun in the 1980s. Since then Bishop Paglia has paid regular visits to Russia. He noted that he had seen an impressive revival of the Russian Orthodox Church that can be justly called, using the well-known words of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, ‘the second Baptism of Russia’.