His All Holiness to visit Rome

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 8, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI will receive in audience Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, who will visit Rome to mark the 90th anniversary of the Pontifical Oriental Institute.

The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity confirmed the audience is scheduled for Thursday, March 6.

The patriarch will visit Rome for the celebrations of the anniversary of the foundation of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, entrusted to the Society of Jesus, and established by Pope Benedict XV in 1917.

Bartholomew I himself received a doctorate from the institute.

Benedict XVI visited the patriarch in Turkey in 2006, on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew.

On Dec. 6, the Pope received a delegation from the Pontifical Oriental Institute and recognized that the role the institute provides has "an effective ecumenical value, because drawing from the heritage of wisdom of the Christian East enriches everyone.”

Some background on the school from Wikipedia:

The Pontifical Oriental Institute ("Pontificium Institutum Orientalum" in Latin, "Pontificio Instituto Orientale" in Italian) is the premier center for the study of Eastern Christianity in Rome, Italy.

The pontifical school was established in 1917 by Pope Benedict XV. Pope Pius XI entrusted the Institute to the Society of Jesus in 1922, and with the 1928 encyclical "Rerum Orientalium", encouraged bishops to send students to the Institute to be formed as future professors in Oriental studies. In that same year, Pius XI associated the Institute with the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, thus forming the Gregorian Consortium.

In 1971, the Faculty of Oriental Canon Law was erected alongside the already existing Faculty of Oriental Ecclesiastical Studies. The Faculty of Oriental Canon Law had a crucial role in the production of Code of Canon Law for the Oriental Churches.

Since 1993, the Grand Chancellor of the Oriental Institute has been the Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, today His Beatitude and Eminence Ignace Moussa I Cardinal Daoud

The Institute maintains an important library of Christian oriental literature. One special holding is a rare collection of Old Slavonic manuscripts.

The Institute has been located across from the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore since 1926.

According to article 16 of the Lateran Treaty, signed in 1929 between Italy and the Holy See, the property of the Oriental Institutue enjoys a certain level of extraterritoriality, with the Holy See having all rights over the infrastructure without interference from the Italian State, and free from all Italian taxation.

The Institute is a member of the Gregorian Consortium.

In spoken language, the school is sometimes simply referred to as "The Orientale".

Website of the Institute itself: http://www.pontificalorientalinstitute.com/. It's quite good I think. Complete with RSS/ATOM feed so I can keep abreast of news.