Ecumenical Patriarch to visit US

Athens News Agency - August 14, 1997

Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Vartholomeos I, spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, will visit the United States for one-month in October, a Patriarchate spokesman told the ANA today.

A programme of his visit released to ANA said the Patriarch will begin the tour, his first to the US, on October 19 and returning to his See on November 17.

| He will be welcomed on arrival at Andrews Air Force Base by Archbishop Spyridon of North and South America, Cabinet members, members of the diplomatic corps, Orthodox hierarchs, ecumenical leaders, senators, congressmen, clergy and laity throughout the U.S.

During his visit, the Patriarch will meet with Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Moslem leaders, and hold talks with U.S. President Bill Clinton, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

One of the highlights of the visit will be his meeting with Cardinal William Keeler as part of efforts to cement relations between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches, which split in 1054.

He will also be the first Orthodox Patriarch to officiate at a service in a Catholic church in the U.S., when he presides over a prayer service at the Basilica of the national Shrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore, Maryland on October 23.

Other highlights will be a Patriarchal Divine Liturgy in New York's Madison Square Garden and a prayer service at the Martin Luther King Centre for Social Change in Atlanta.

On the first leg of his tour, in Washington D.C., the Patriarch will visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and hold talks with Jewish leaders. He will also address the first the First Orthodox-Muslim Dialogue in America at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

Other cities on his itinerary are New Jersey, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Des Moines, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Florence (Arizona) and Pittsburgh.

[ Athens News Agency - www.ana.gr - August 14, 1997 ]