The Vatican has outlined a programme of events celebrating the life of St Paul to mark the forthcoming "Pauline Year", with the emphasis firmly on ecumenism.

Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed a year dedicated to St Paul while presiding over vespers at the basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome last June. It will run from June 29 2008 to June 29 2009, marking the presumed 2000th anniversary of the Apostle's birth.

Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the Archpriest of St Paul's Basilica, told a Vatican press conference that the celebrations would have a "clear ecumenical dimension", with a chapel at the basilica formerly used for baptisms re-dedicated as an "Ecumenical Chapel". He said he hoped "our brothers from various Christian denominations" would visit Rome to pray with Roman Catholics in the chapel and at the tomb of St Paul beneath the high altar, although without joint celebration of Holy Communion.

He said the use of the baptismal chapel was appropriate since "baptism is the sacrament which unites all those who believe in Christ". A flame dedicated to St Paul will burn at the basilica throughout the Pauline year so that pilgrims can light candles from it. Exhibitions, concerts and conferences are planned as well a the issue of a Vatican stamp and a two Euro Vatican coin dedicated to St Paul.

There are also plans for organised tours to the twelve sites in Rome associated with St Paul, and to the places in Greece and Turkey where he conducted his missions, run by the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi. The cardinal noted that there was no church in Tarsus, St Paul's birthplace, but said this was being discussed with the Turkish authorities.

The Apostle's Jewish origins and his dramatic conversion to Christ on the road to Damascus will be discussed at a Catholic-Jewish conference at the Gregorian University in Rome. Cardinal di Montezemolo said St Paul's Basilica expected seven thousand visitors during the Pauline year, twice the normal number. The leaders of non Catholic denominations - including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople - would be invited to attend the opening ceremony on 28 June presided over by the Pope.

Last year the pontiff said that "as in the Church's beginnings, so today Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. It needs witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul". He noted the saint's "commitment to unity and harmony among all Christians".

A crude marble sarcophagus beneath the main altar has long been identified as the tomb of St. Paul, who was martyred nearby. Pope Benedict said the sarcophagus "according to the common opinion of the experts and unopposed tradition holds the remains of the apostle Paul." However Cardinal di Montezemolo said opening the tomb to prove this was "complicated" because it was enclosed by a wall built in ancient times to protect it from flooding by the nearby Tiber.

At the weekend the Pope launched the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by calling for "practical results which express and build up our unity in Christ and therefore strengthen relationships between Christians". He was speaking to members of a joint Catholic-Lutheran pilgrimage sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

"In the new and challenging circumstances of today there is much that Lutherans and Catholics can do together in the service of the Gospel and the advancement of the kingdom of God," the Pope said. He said prayers for Christian unity reinforced the bonds among Christians and enabled them "to face courageously the painful memories, social burdens and human weaknesses that are so much a part of our divisions."