A stunning display of solidarity between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican was revealed last week as a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate urged unity between the churches for the sake of a "new evangelization" of de-Christianized Europe.

The message was given last Thursday during a concert of 19th and 20th century Russian classical music, which was performed before some 7,000 guests at the Vatican as a gift to Pope Benedict XVI from Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

Prior to the concert's beginning, Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, read a congratulatory message to Benedict from Kirill that urged the two churches to act "not as rivals but as allies, especially in Europe."

"Your Holiness, we support your call for a new evangelization of Europe. However, we believe that no church, even so large and strong, as the Roman Catholic church, is not able to implement it alone," Kirill's message said. "We should be together. We have a common field of missionary work – today's de-Christianize Europe, having lost their religious, moral and cultural roots."

Kirill noted that the "secularization, consumer ideology and moral relativism" must be challenged by the church's "Christian humanism, and moral values of family, marital fidelity, the value of life itself, since its conception until its natural end," which he said will help Europeans to "gain a spiritual and moral meaning to their lives, but also help our continent, which is currently experiencing a very serious crisis of identity, regain their spiritual and cultural roots."

In his response after the concert, Benedict expressed his "profound gratitude" to Kirill and the Moscow Patriarchate, saying that he hopes that "praise to the Lord and commitment to the progress of peace and harmony between peoples will increasingly unite us and make us grow in harmony of intentions and actions."

"Let us make Europe breathe with its two lungs again, let us again give a soul not only to believers but to all peoples of the Continent, let us promote confidence and hope again, rooting them in the age-old experience of the Christian faith," the Pope said.

Benedict has been a strong proponent of thawing the tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican, which date back to the "Great Schism" in the 11th century. Russian Church officials have described him as a pope who receives "the positive regard of the whole of the Russian Orthodox world."

In their efforts to achieve solidarity, the Vatican recently published a collection of Patriarch Kirill's writings on the dignity of man and the rights of a person, adding an introduction from Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture. A similar gesture from the Moscow Patriarch was completed for a set of Benedict's writings.

Following the concert, Hilarion told reporters that he sees "many positive signs in the development of this particular type of dialogue," and said that a meeting between Kirill and Benedict in the near future is "possible."