AN ECUMENICAL service of morning prayer in the Chapel of Our Lady Martyrdom, at Canterbury Cathedral, took place on Thursday, to celebrate 60 years since the Common Declaration by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey, on 24 March 1966.

The service was led by the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd David Monteith, and attended by the newly installed Archbishop of Canterbury, who read from Ephesians. At the conclusion of the service, Archbishop Mullally prayed with the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, at the site of the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket. Cardinal Koch, who had read the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah, also read out the message of greeting from Pope Leo to the Archbishop.

As at her installation on Wednesday, Archbishop Mullally wore the pastoral ring given to Ramsey in Rome by Pope Paul VI, which was symbolic of the increasing closeness of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. Ramsey (1904-88) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974, and Pope Paul VI (1897-1978) was Pope from 1963 to 1978.

The Common Declaration, which led to the founding of the Anglican Centre in Rome later that same year, was the first shared document of its type proclaimed both by a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury. It was read aloud in Latin and English at a joint service in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, Rome.

It read: “In this city of Rome, from which Saint Augustine was sent by Saint Gregory to England and there founded the cathedral see of Canterbury, towards which the eyes of all Anglicans now turn as the centre of their Christian Communion, His Holiness Pope Paul VI and His Grace Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, representing the Anglican Communion, have met to exchange fraternal greetings.

“At the conclusion of their meeting they give thanks to Almighty God Who by the action of the Holy Spirit has in these latter years created a new atmosphere of Christian fellowship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Anglican Communion.

“This encounter of the 23 March 1966 marks a new stage in the development of fraternal relations, based upon Christian charity, and of sincere efforts to remove the causes of conflict and to re-establish unity.”