Bari, Italy  - Italian President Giorgio Napolitano was scheduled later Sunday to hand his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, the key of an Orthodox church in the southern Italian city of Bari.

A message of goodwill by Pope Benedict XVI was also set to be read at the ceremony by a Vatican envoy, Cardinal Salvatore Di Giorgio.

The acting head of the External Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchy, Bishop Mark of Yegorievsk, was set to deliver a speech on behalf of the Russian Orthodx Church.

"The handover is an historic event which characterizes the level of international and mutual understanding not only between Russia and Italy but to a certain degree between the (Catholic and Russian Orthodox) churches," Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said.

Sunday's ceremony is the culmination of a process began in 2007 when, during a visit by then Russian president Vladimir Putin, Bari's city authorities decided to transfer ownership of the building to Russia.

The church was built in 1913 with the support of Russian Zarina Alexandra's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, who like her sibling was murdered by communists in 1918.

The church is close to a Roman Catholic basilica where the relics of St Nicholas are kept. Also known as Nicolas the Wonderworker, the third-century saint who was born in Lycia - modern-day Turkey - and is especially revered in the Russian Orthodox faith.

After the 1917 Communist Revolution in Russia, the Orthodox Church in Bari fell into disrepair before being handed over to local authorities in 1937.

The handover ceremony was originally scheduled to take place in December 2008 but was postponed because of the death of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarch Alexei II. dpa