Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of the Church of England, visited Sant’Egidio while he was staying Rome where he met Pope Benedict XVI. Together with the Pope, they celebrated the vespers for the millenary of the transit of Gregory the Great.

The Anglican Archbishop, with his delegation, attended the liturgy in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. At the end of the celebration, he took the floor to greet the Community, to which he is bonded to through a long friendship.

“The testimony and the life of the Community of Sant’Egidio are to me always an example of a high degree of Christian freedom – he said – In fact, Christian life is freedom from the spirit of slavery, while sin in the life of the world is generated by fear. In this time of Lent one needs to think about our freedom as disciples, who can live as non-conformist and make a difference in this world.”

At the end of the meeting, Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, donated to the Archbishop an icon of Mary Hodegetria, made by the iconographic laboratory of the Community of Sant’Egidio..

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