Pope and Patriarch Gather at Golgotha

Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the successors to the apostles Peter and Andrew, made history in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today by holding a prayer service together in a place where Christians from different churches have previously prayed only separately.

During the evening prayer service in Jerusalem, both Pope and Patriarch knelt beside each other to pray and also light candles at the tomb where Jesus Christ was buried after his crucifixion in 34 A.D. and rose from the dead on the third day. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told journalists at a late evening press conference that their public mutual prayer was completely new and another “historic” step forward in ecumenical progress begun by Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in 1964.