“Two days ago, Archbishop Nikodim of Leningrad died in my arms. Never in my life have I heard such beautiful words for the Church”. This was the inner feeling expressed by Pope Luciani when he received the priests in Rome on September 7, 1978.
(Vatican News Network) On September 3, 1978, Luciani celebrated the Mass at which he began his papacy on the large stone steps in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Two days later, on the morning of September 5, he received Nikodim, the Archbishop of St. Petersburg, the Russian Orthodox Church, the “foreign minister” of the Patriarch of Pimen. The archbishop had a heart attack and collapsed in the Pope’s arms at the end of the meeting. He was only 49 years old that year. John Paul I was deeply moved by Nicodemus’ sudden death and what he had just heard.
He mentioned this in a conversation with priests in Rome on September 7.
