Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I said he looked forward "with frank joy, love and honor" to the pontiff's visit, the main highlight of which will be a meeting in Istanbul with the patriarch.

"It is preferable that those who bear the name of Christian ... should maintain good relations and peaceful communication and dialogue rather than have hostile relations and quarrel with each other," Bartholomew said.

The Istanbul-based patriarch was speaking in Athens during an eight-day visit to Greece that included meetings Wednesday with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and President Karolos Papoulias.

The pope has said his meeting with Bartholomew is a priority of his Nov. 28-Dec. 1 pilgrimage, his first visit to a predominantly Muslim country.

The meeting will seek to mend relations with the Orthodox Church — which broke with Rome in 1054 following long and acrimonious disputes over papal authority and Christian creed.

The Vatican has been working to overcome tensions with the Orthodox, especially in Russia and Ukraine, with an eye on a possible papal visit to Moscow that eluded Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II.

Brushing aside criticism from Orthodox zealots who regard the pope as a heretic, Bartholomew has given priority to boosting ties with western churches.

"There can be no constructive dialogue with a person whom we exclude in advance by calling him a heretic," he said Thursday. "Even if he is a heretic in conscience, our first and second meeting with him must be ... a friendly exposition of the truth and not an admonitory or condemnatory judgment."

Bartholomew also urged peaceful coexistence with non-Christian religions.

"We religious leaders have a duty to proclaim that conflict and war are not part of our religious duties, that there are peaceful ways of overcoming differences and that those who maintain the opposite do not express God's true will," he said.

On Sunday, the patriarch will visit the all-male monastic community of Mount Athos in northern Greece.

One group of monks at the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou Monastery have refused to acknowledge Bartholomew's authority in protest at efforts to improve ties between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Vatican. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/