Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has sent a German-language message to a conference at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of Metropolitan Damaskinos. The two first met in Bonn in 1959.

A decade after the prelate’s death, “the fruit of a living inner relationship with Orthodoxy has remained and continues to grow in the friendship that binds me ever more to the Ecumenical Patriarch,” Pope Emeritus Benedict wrote.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, also paid tribute to the late prelate.