His Beatitude Volodymyr met with head of the Pontifical Council for Culture Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi

Ukrainian Orthodox Church

On May 27 His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine received at his metropolitan’s residence at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra the chair of the Pontifical Council for Culture Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, who was staying in Ukraine on those days.

Taking part in the meeting also were Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič with co-workers of the nunciature and Secretary of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC archpriest Mykolai Danylevych.

In the course of conversation Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi told the Primate of the UOC of the common cultural projects of Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church. The Vatican representative also shared his pleasant amazement of the beauty of Kyiv and the Kyiv Caves Monastery that he made a tour of before the meeting.

In his turn, His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr noted that the common cultural projects contribute more effectively for rapprochement and mutual recognition of the Orthodox and Catholics, and so, in the opinion of His Beatitude, the cultural domain has to be top priority in the relations between our Churches.

In the course of conversation the issue of the possible visit of the Pope to Ukraine in 2012 was raised, on which chair of the Conference of the Roman-Catholic Bishops Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki officially informed. In response to this Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine Ivan Jurkovič stated that accepting the invitation by the Roman See did not mean that the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Ukraine will no doubt take place, and that this issue was to be considered by the Holy See.

Besides, in the course of the conversation the possible projects of cooperation in the domain of culture between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Vatican were discussed.

In conclusion of the meeting His Beatitude Volodymyr offered as a present to the guest the disks with records of the orthodox services and photo album “The Primate”. Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi presented His Beatitude Volodymyr with his book “Song of Solomon” in Ukrainian and with the jubilee medal dedicated to the third year of pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.

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