Vatican News: Cardinal Koch in Ukraine: Goal of Ecumenism "Visible Communion"

(Vatican Radio)The President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, gave a lecture at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, on June 10 on “Prospects of the Ecumenical Dialogue Between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches."

According to the Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU), Cardinal Kurt Koch focused on the discussion of one of the most painful and key issues of Orthodox-Catholic relations – the primacy of the bishop of Rome.Cardinal Koch explained that "from the Orthodox point of view, the church is present in every local church that celebrates the Eucharist, so each Eucharistic community is a complete church. Instead, from the Catholic point of view, a separate Eucharistic community is not a complete church. Therefore, a basis of the Catholic Church is the unity of separate Eucharistic communities with each other and the bishop of Rome. That is, the Catholic Church lives in the mutual intersection of local churches in one universal church.”

According to the cardinal, “the most important thing is not to lose sight of the goal of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which, at least from the Catholic point of view, can consist only in the restoration of a visible communion of churches.”