"There have been important gestures..."

"...photographs have been taken, and gifts have been exchanged. Now, there is need for assessment and also for a more spiritual ecumenism, namely, a grass-roots ecumenism.

"Now, peoples, priests and parishes and individuals must talk among themselves.

"It is necessary to become friends and not to speak as diplomats, but as brothers."

Archimandrite Ignatios Sotiriadis of the Greek Orthodox Church, in statements November 25 to Vatican Radio. The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, "first among equals" among the Orthodox, will be in Rome for a two-day visit.