Many aspects of Pope John Paul's visit to Egypt have conveyed the clear image of a man who realises that his time on earth is coming to an end. The Pope is in his 80th year. His slurred speech and the trembling of his hands convey the classic symptoms of the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease. The Vatican, in tune with centuries-old traditions, does not comment on the health of its leaders but the pontiff's obvious frailty tells its own story. So too did his arrival to Mount Sinai. This visit bore all the hallmarks of the fulfilment of a final personal ambition to be present in a place of exceptional religious resonance. In the context of the drawing together of the different strands of Christian belief and practice throughout the world his use of the sentence: "There is no time to lose" may have been of particular significance.
In more than twenty years at the head of what is by far the world's largest Christian denomination John Paul II has witnessed immense changes in the world. In what has been perhaps the most significant of those changes, the end of the Communist system, he has played an extremely important role. The former Soviet president Mr Mikhail Gorbachev wrote, upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, that the end of the communist systems in Eastern Europe would not have been possible without the Pope from Poland. A less successful aspect of his pontificate has been in the area of rapprochement between the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations. A lack of progress in discussions between Rome and the ancient, indigenous and orthodox branches of Christianity to the east on matters of doctrinal and organisational differences has marked a significant downside to Pope John Paul's pontificate.
In Egypt, happily, the ordinary Christian faithful, whether loyal to Rome or to the majority who accept the Coptic Pope Shenouda III as their religious leader, regard themselves basically as members of the same church. There is little animosity between individual Christians. It is at the level of senior churchmen that major differences arise. The same cannot be said for the situation in European areas in which the jurisdictions of Rome and local orthodox Patriarchates collide. Since the end of state sponsored atheism in Ukraine, for example, religious friction between a series of local confessions has increased. Rivalry between churches loyal to Moscow, Kiev and Rome is intense. Un-Christian words and deeds have been commonplace.
Since he comes from the borderlands where Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy intermingle, these divisions have occupied an important place in the mind-set of the present Pope. In the context of relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the non-reformed churches of the east Pope John Paul's suggestion on his Egyptian visit that even the "primacy of Rome" over other churches could be open for discussion appears to be a major advance. Despite minor differences in belief in a world in which religion appears less relevant than ever, particularly to young people, centuries of suspicion and mistrust between the eastern churches and Rome will, however, be extremely difficult to overcome.