Vatican City ? Pope John Paul II, in a gesture of friendship with the Orthodox Church, on Saturday handed over the bones of two early Christian saints that were brought to Rome from ancient Constantinople centuries ago.

The Vatican said the return of the saints’ relics was part of the pope’s efforts to promote Christian unity and dismissed any suggestion that John Paul was “asking pardon” for their removal by Crusaders from the seat of the Orthodox Church.

The pope sat beside Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, in St. Peter’s Basilica as the bones of the saints, resting on yellow velvet in crystal and alabaster reliquaries, were brought to the altar.

While a choir sang in Greek and Latin, the two religious leaders blessed the relics, before the reliquaries were carried away on biers by Vatican ushers in dark suits acting as pallbearers.

The Vatican is retaining a small part of the relics.

During a visit to the Vatican in June, the Orthodox leader had sought the return of the relics of Patriarchs John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen, who were archbishops long before the split between the eastern and western churches nearly 1,000 years ago.

In remarks read for him by an aide, the frail pontiff called it a “blessed occasion to purify our wounded memories” and to “strengthen our path of reconciliation.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, sits with Pope John Paul II during a ceremony inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. During the ceremony Saturday, the pontiff handed over the relics of the Orthodox saints that were brought to Rome from ancient Constantinople centuries ago.

“I will never tire” in efforts to achieve it, the pope said.

Bartholomew, speaking next, said the handover repaired “an anomaly” and “ecclesiastical injustice” and that it was a sign that there are no “insurmountable problems in the Church of Christ.”

In Istanbul later Saturday, bells rang out in celebration as the remains were carried in a candlelight procession into the Cathedral of St. George.