Neumann University, in partnership with Saint Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church (OCA), will celebrate fifty years of constructive dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy with an exhibit entitled East Meets West: An Ecclesial Embrace. An Exhibit Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Historic Jerusalem Meeting of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I.

The exhibit, which runs from February 23 to April 23 in the university library, features exquisite icons, vestments, liturgical art and vessels of the Orthodox Church as well as rare artifacts from that meeting of Paul VI and Athenagoras I. East Meets West is free and open to the public.

Fifty-one years ago, the meeting captured the attention of Christians around the world because it signaled a change in the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, initiating dialogue that had been absent for centuries. The January 6, 1964, encounter was the first formal meeting of a Pope and Patriarch since 1438.

Very Rev. Dr. Denis Bradley, professor emeritus of philosophy at Georgetown University, will deliver an opening lecture, based on the exhibit title, on February 23 at 7 p.m. in Sacred Heart Chapel.

Dr. Aristeides Papadakis, professor emeritus of Byzantine history at the University of Maryland, will deliver the closing lecture, The “Schism” of 1054: Points of Reflection, on March 25 at 7 p.m., also in the chapel.

For more information about the exhibit, contact the Neumann University library at 610-558-5545 or library@neumann.edu.