Vatican: orthodox delegation meets Pope in St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican: orthodox delegation meets Pope in St. Peter's Basilica

Benedict has made uniting all Chrisitians and healing the 1,000-year-old rift with the Orthodox a primal goal of his papacy, although acknowledging key differences.

He combined his call for Christian unity with a warning that the Catholic Church was threatened by those seeking to "push it outside the world."

During the Mass, Benedict bestowed the pallium, a woolen shawl, on 27 archbishops from around the world to symbolize their bond with the Vatican. One by one the archbishops, wearing crimson vestments, knelt before the pope to receive it, according to the AP.