On 23 November 2011, Pope Benedict XVI met with the participants in the 2 Orthodox-Catholic Forum, which took place on the island of Rhodes, Greece, from 18 to 2 October 2010, and dealt with the theme ‘Church and State Relations: from Historical and Theological Perspectives.’
Among the Orthodox participants were Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima, Patriarchate of Constantinople; Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; and Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Messinia, the Greek Orthodox Church. A group of the Catholic participants was led by Cardinal Péter Erdö, president of the Council of the European Bishops’ Conference.
Metropolitan Hilarion, who is currently in Rome as a participant in the meeting of the Coordinating Committee of the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, conveyed best wishes of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
On behalf of the participants, Cardinal Erdö delivered the acts of the 2nd Orthodox-Catholic Forum to Pope Benedict XVI.