On December 7, 1965, the Catholic–Orthodox Joint Declaration was simultaneously read at a public meeting of the Second Vatican Council in Rome and at a special ceremony in Istanbul. With this action, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I revoked the excommunications that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches had imposed on each other during the Great Schism of 1054. Although the declaration itself did not end the schism, it expressed a desire for the restoration of unity between the two churches.
Since the declaration, ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches has significantly progressed, leading to more frequent messages of friendship and cooperation between the two. Next year, if health permits, Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will together celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea.
Metropolitan Philaret of the “Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia” openly challenged the Patriarch’s efforts at rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church, claiming that it would inevitably lead to heresy, in his 1965 epistle to the Patriarch.
