ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II
TO MR ION ILIESCU
PRESIDENT OF ROMANIA*

Thursday, 30 September 2004 

Mr President,

I offer you a warm welcome and express my deep gratitude to you for your visit on the occasion of the inauguration at the Vatican Museums of an exhibition with the symbolic title, "Stephen the Great, a bridge between East and West".

Today's meeting affords me the opportunity to remember with emotion and gratitude the memorable Visit that I had the joy of paying to Romania in 1999. A pilgrim of faith and hope, I was warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by you and by the State Authorities, by H.B. Patriarch Teoctist and by all the people of the venerable Orthodox Church of Romania. I received a particularly warm embrace from the Bishops and from the beloved Catholic communities of both Byzantine and Latin rites.

Mr President, I express to you, to your collaborators and to the entire Romanian Nation my affectionate good wishes for prosperity and peace. I accompany these wishes with my prayers, and invoke the Lord's Blessing upon everyone.