THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Jewish and Orthodox Christian leaders plan to form a joint commission to broaden interfaith dialogue and examine Jewish concerns in Eastern Europe, a top Jewish envoy said.
The new panel was announced at a Thessaloniki conference on relations between Jews and Orthodox Christians. The move would greatly expand high-level Jewish-Christian contacts, which have been dominated by the Vatican.
"It would be a significant step," Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, said Tuesday. "The lines of communication between the Jewish communities and Christians would be stronger."
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual head of the world's 200 million Orthodox, has urged Orthodox churches to show greater openness and abandon deep-rooted suspicions toward others.