c. 1999 Religion News Service

BUCHAREST, Romania _ Pope John Paul II appealed for Christian unity on his arrival here Friday (May 7), as he became the first Roman Catholic leader to set foot in a predominantly Orthodox nation since the Eastern and Western churches split nearly 1,000 years ago.

The pope began his three-day visit by urging Christian churches to put aside the”differences, passions and ideologies”that have prevented them from being”collaborators for a common good. It is up to them to be creators of peace, solidarity and fraternity.” Patriarch Teoctist, the 84-year-old head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and President Emil Constantinescu, greeted the pope at Bucharest’s Baneasa airport. The pope kissed a sample of Romanian soil presented on a tray, and children dressed in folk costumes presented him with the traditional Romanian welcoming gifts of bread and salt.

The pope also hailed those who became martyrs _ including many church leaders _ because of their opposition to Romania’s former communist regime, which was violently overthrown 10 years ago.”Thank God, after the winter of communist domination, a springtime of hope has begun,”the 78-year-old pope said.

While celebrating the fall of a political iron curtain, the pope pushed aside a theological divide dating back to the 11th-century Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity. The pope has met with Teoctist and other Orthodox leaders before, but he broke new ground Friday by visiting a nation with an overwhelming majority Orthodox population.

The Vatican and Orthodox leaders also are engaged in an ongoing official dialogue, the ultimate goal of which is eventual unification. The next session of the dialogue was set for Maryland in June, but has been rescheduled for next year because of the current NATO action against Yugoslavia.”The second millennium of the Christian era began sadly with a wound in the unity of the church,”Teoctist said.”It is ending, however, with the sincere effort of Christian churches worldwide to heal this wound.” The two elderly spiritual leaders, dressed in their respective festive white robes, then rode in the”popemobile”past cheering crowds that lined the broad boulevards of this nation’s capital, waving papal and Romanian flags.

The motorcade traveled to the Patriarchal Cathedral, where John Paul prayed and listened to a choir robustly chanting Orthodox liturgies.

John Paul received some help from Constantinescu as he walked on the airport tarmac, but he looked healthy and enthusiastic and spoke with a firm, lively voice.

The pope did not mention the ongoing Balkan war Friday, though he is expected to do so during this trip to Yugoslavia’s eastern neighbor. The Vatican has denounced Yugoslavia’s mass expulsions of ethnic Albanians from the province of Kosovo, while the Romanian Orthodox Church has voiced sympathy for their fellow Serbian Orthodox and their claim to sovereignty over Kosovo.

Only Constantinescu, whose government has authorized NATO use of its air space to bomb Yugoslavia, broached the subject.”As Christians, we partake in the sufferings of each citizen of our neighboring countries, whether Serb or Albanian,”he said.”We wish with all our hearts that dialogue and mutual tolerance can inaugurate a new century of good friendship and prosperity in this corner of the world.” The Romanian president also praised the pope for the”beneficial ritual of exorcism”he performed as a leading opponent of communist regimes.”You didn’t view communism as an external enemy, but as a pathology of the spirit whose sole remedy was the affirmation of great Christian principles,”Constantinescu said.

The pope saluted Romania as”a bridge”between the Latin world, the base of Romania’s language and ethnicity, and the Byzantine world, source of its Orthodox faith.

But in a speech later to state officials and the diplomatic corps, he also expressed sympathy for Romanians suffering economic hardship and urged other European nations to help Romania through its wrenching transition from a communist economy.

On Saturday (May 8), the pope is scheduled to celebrate a Mass at the city’s Catholic cathedral, where he will use the liturgy of Romania’s Greek Catholics _ an Orthodox-like service used by hundreds of thousands of Romanians loyal to the pope. John Paul also is scheduled to meet with Teoctist and other Orthodox leaders on Saturday. Sunday the two leaders will attend outdoor liturgies led by each other.

About 87 percent of Romania’s 23 million people are Orthodox. Tensions persist between Orthodox Romanians and the nation’s more than 1 million Roman Catholics, who follow the traditional Western liturgy, and hundreds of thousands of Greek Catholics.

Those tensions stem from the Greek Catholic church _ but not the Roman Catholic _ having been banned during the 40 years of communist rule. Greek Catholics are now seeking the return of thousands of church buildings they claim the Orthodox took illegally during the communist period.

The pope’s plan to visit only Bucharest, and not the heavily Catholic regions of Transylvania in the northwest and Moldavia in the east, disappointed Catholics before the trip. But Catholics who traveled to Bucharest said they were cheered by what they saw and heard.”I’m very optimistic,”said Greek Catholic Bishop Tertulian Langa, who traveled 300 miles south from his Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Langa said he appreciated hearing the pope’s salute to the endurance of the Greek Catholic Church during its years of persecution, as well as Constantinescu’s call for reconciliation between the quarrelsome churches.

Georgeta Petre, 34, of the village of Popesti-Leordeni near Bucharest, came with a group of Roman Catholics.

The pope is”a very special person, and he has a lot of connections,”said Petre.”He can help Romania in the future with its social and political problems.” She also hoped the visit would help end the war in nearby Yugoslavia.”It’s an opportunity to work for peace and understanding,”she said.

Many Orthodox also came out of admiration for the pope.”He is a great man of the 20th century,”said Jonel Popa, 28, a philosophy student from Tulcea in eastern Romania, who plans to become an Orthodox priest.

But no one was optimistic that the pope’s visit might bring about full church unity anytime soon.”It’s a beginning. That’s all,”said Margareta Micolae, 25, a computer technician and a Roman Catholic from the village of Popesti-Leordeni.

IR END SMITH