The move will have little practical effect for church-going Methodists, a denomination that split from Anglicanism.

"We welcome this agreement with great joy," the World Methodist Council said in a statement.

"It is our deep hope that in the near future, we shall also be able to enter into closer relationships with Lutherans and the Roman Catholic Church."

The Vatican cardinal in charge of the 1.1 billion-strong Catholic Church's relations with other Christian churches, Walter Kasper, said before a signing event: "Today is one of the most significant dates in the history of our churches".

Methodist leaders unanimously passed the resolution to join the Catholic-Lutheran agreement last week during a global conference in Seoul.

Salvation split

The issue of justification - simply put, what Christians must do to get to Heaven - was the central dispute in the Reformation that split western Christianity and plunged Europe into the Thirty Years' War.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict played a key role in drawing up the Catholic-Lutheran declaration that revoked heresy charges against reformer Martin Luther and said disputes that led to the Reformation over four centuries ago were null and void.

Luther, a German monk who posted his famous 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg in 1517, held people could be saved not by faith and good works but by faith alone.

He was angered by the Catholic Church's teaching that good works could also lead to salvation, a view that was corrupted into the practice of selling indulgences to those seeking absolution for their sins.

The 1999 statement satisfied both Lutherans and Catholics, saying that salvation is achieved through God's grace and this is reflected in the good works a person does.

The signing does not mean that Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist churches are moving toward any kind of reunification, a step that deep historical divisions make highly unlikely.

But it could encourage them to take more common positions on issues of concern to Christians.

This week, for example, the Vatican supported an Orthodox project on protecting the world environment, saying believers should unite "to safeguard the habitat that the Creator prepared for mankind".

Pope Benedict is also seeking more cooperation with the Orthodox churches, the eastern European Christians who split from Rome in the 11th century, and will visit their Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul in November.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1694339.htm Copyright 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation