The leader of the Orthodox Church will attend the assumption of Pope Francis I

March 16, 2013

The leader of the Orthodox Church will meet with the Pope in the Vatican, a gesture that breaks the distance between the two churches after nearly 1000 years, when they split.

Bartholomew, leader of the Orthodox Catholic Church, attend the inauguration of Pope Francis I. the last time that a leader of the Orthodox Church went to the assumption of a new Pope had been in 1054 AD, before the split of the Eastern and Western Churches.

The Church led by Barthelemy has more than 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide and is also the patriarch of the Church of Constantinople, with four million members spread across several countries.

Nowadays, orthodox Christianity is the predominant religion in Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, the Republic of Macedonia, Russia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.

There are also important communities in countries like Germany, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Spain, United States, France, Britain and Italy.

His gesture to go to Rome demolishes a symbolic wall of alienation that has lasted almost a thousand years.