Istanbul, Turkey - The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Bartholomew I, will attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the Istanbul-based patriarchate said Monday.
Pope John Paul II left "unforgettable traces with his efforts for peace, the importance he gave to justice... and his couragous initiatives," said the statement, carried by Anatolia news agency.
"The space that his death leaves empty is too large not only for the Catholic Church, but also for all Christianity and mankind," it said.
Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox worshippers in the world, has met the late pope several times during visits to the Vatican.
John Paul II, on the other hand, visited Istanbul -- Turkey's biggest city and Bartholomew's seat -- in 1979, just a year after he was elected pontiff, during which he announced the creation of a joint Orthodox-Catholic committee to resolve the differences between the two Churches which split in 1054.
In a meeting at the Vatican last July, the pope and Bartholomew I had issued a joint declaration for the resumption of Orthodox-Catholic theological talks, suspended in 2000 after a row over the status of Eastern Catholic Churches.
The funeral of the pope, who died on Saturday, is expected to be held Thursday or Friday in Saint Peter's Basilica.