Dialogue began with a meeting of the Assyrian Patriarch (Catholicos) Mar Dinkha IV and Pope John Paul II in 1984, and the patriarch's participation in the first Assisi Day of Prayer for Peace in 1986. Nearly a decade of dialogue proved sufficient to resolve the disagreements over terminology in Christology, leading to the "Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East", signed by Pope John Paul II of the Catholic Church and Mar Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1994.