VIENNA (AP) – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, began an official visit to Austria on Tuesday with a stop at a Greek Orthodox church in Vienna and a meeting with Vatican representatives.
Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul, Turkey, stopped at the office of the papal nuncio in Vienna before meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik and touring the Greek church in the capital’s Fleischmarkt neighborhood.
In an evening presentation at the downtown St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Bartholomew was to be presented with the Cardinal Koenig Prize. The award is given annually in honor of Franz Koenig, the late Austrian cardinal and church diplomat who helped set Vatican policy toward other religions and postwar communist regimes.
In November, Bartholomew met in Istanbul with Pope Benedict XVI in what was hailed as a milestone in centuries of stumbling efforts toward possible unity between the world’s Catholics and Orthodox believers.
Tensions with the Orthodox Church in Russia kept the late John Paul II from making a long-hoped-for pilgrimage there. Vatican officials have expressed hopes that Benedict will visit Moscow, but there are no concrete plans despite improving relations with Russian Orthodox leaders.
