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by Martha Zhao Beijing (Agenzia Fides) - Exactly one hundred years after his arrival in Beijing, the figure of Cardinal Celso Costantini, the first Apostolic Delegate in China, is being rediscovered and his topicality is reinforced also in the Chinese academic world. On the morning of today, Friday, December 23, a Seminar dedicated to the theme of Sino-Vatican relations during the Republic of China, centered precisely on the figure of Constantine, was organized at the History Department of the East China Normal University, (ECNU), founded in 1951 in Shanghai.

The Chaldean patriarchs spoke to AsiaNews about the pope emeritus who died this morning. A "man of God” with a "luminous" face, one day he will be proclaimed "doctor for what he has left". He had a bond of "deep closeness" with the Muslim world. He supported the synod on the Middle East in 2010.