ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS MAR DINKHA IV
TO HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
2 October 1984
Your Holiness,
We are grateful to Your Holiness for your kindness in welcoming us as brothers in Christ for the second time.
We are glad and thankful to God who has protected Your Holiness and granted you good health.
The fruit of your hard work, since you have carried this Apostolic responsibility for the last six years, has been very useful both to Christianity and to humanity.
Your speeches and advice as a spiritual father have encouraged and strengthened faith in Christ and have also encouraged many Churches toward ecumenism and unity.
Just as, at the time of the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D., when all Christians shared one faith and Church, so also today we all believe in one God, the Father of all, and in the mystery of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, as mentioned in 1 John 5:5: “Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” and also in 1 John 4:14-15: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God”. For this we are all bound with Jesus Christ, Son of the living God.
It is important to fulfil and obey the commandment of our·Lord Jesus Christ as in John 15:12-13. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.
We can bring about love and peace among us by frequent meetings and gatherings as brothers, especially when these are organized as dialogues and consultations. As faithful Christians we should communicate with each other and recognize ourselves as members of one, holy, apostolic Church under the lordship of her master Jesus Christ.
Through love and understanding we will overcome our differences and then we can again tie together the scattered rings of the chain of the Christian Churches. And the Lord of the Church will be satisfied with us, that we are fulfilling our duty to humanity.
Your Holiness has followed this path of peace and unity. We pray for you always and for your aims toward unity and love among all people in the world.
And we sincerely ask Your Holiness to pray for an immediate and everlasting peace in the Middle East, especially between Iran and Iraq.
In conclusion, we ask Your Holiness to remember in your prayers the Assyrian Church and Nation that is scattered all over the world.