60th anniversary of meeting between St Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey

On Thursday 26 March 2026, the morning after her installation in Canterbury Cathedral, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Reverend Sarah Mullally, and Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, commemorated the 60th anniversary of the historic meeting in Rome between St Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey which marked the beginning of official ecumenical engagement between Catholics and Anglicans. In a striking gesture, at the end of that meeting on 24 March 1966, Pope Paul gave the episcopal ring that he had worn as Archbishop of Milan to Archbishop Ramsey.

The Common Declaration signed by Pope Paul and Archbishop Ramsey on that occasion, the first formal ecumenical statement between Anglicans and Catholics, committed the churches to “a new stage in the development of fraternal relations, based upon Christian charity”. Among the fruits of the meeting were the establishment of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), the Anglican Centre in Rome, and the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM).

Following a short service of Morning Prayer in the Chapel of Our Lady Martyrdom in the Cathedral, Archbishop Mullally and Cardinal Koch prayed together in silence at the Altar of the Swordspoint, the site of the martyrdom in 1170 of St Thomas Becket, the 47th Archbishop of Canterbury. When St John Paul II visited Canterbury Cathedral in 1982, he and Archbishop Robert Runcie prayed together at the same site. Archbishop Mullally and Cardinal Koch knelt on the same kneeler used by Pope John Paul and Archbishop Runcie in 1982, and Archbishop Mullally was wearing the ring given by Pope Paul to Archbishop Ramsey in 1966.

Following this moment of silent prayer, Cardinal Koch read the Message of Pope Leo XIV, which the Holy Father addressed to Archbishop Mullally to mark her installation. In his message, the Pope assured the Archbishop of his prayers and gave thanks for the “fresh chapter of respectful openness” made possible by the 1966 encounter between St Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. Noting how their immediate predecessors had acknowledged that the ecumenical journey has not always been smooth, he affirmed: “I firmly believe that we need to continue to dialogue in truth and love, for it is only in truth and love that we come to know together the grace, mercy and peace of God (cf. 2 Jn 1:3), and thus can offer these precious gifts to the world”.