Pope Francis yesterday began a landmark trip to Greece with the first visit to Athens by a pontiff in two decades, aiming to improve historically fraught relations with the country’s Orthodox Church and highlight the plight of refugees.
The pope’s two-day trip is to see him return today to the island of Lesbos, which he last visited in 2016 during the early years of the migration crisis.
However, his visit to Athens is the first by a pope since John Paul II in 2001, which in turn was the first papal visit to the city since the 1054 Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Francis is seeking to improve historically difficult relations with the Orthodox Church while also highlighting the plight of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in Greece.
“I ardently long to meet you all, all, not only Catholics, but all of you,” he said in a message before embarking on his trip, which began on Thursday with a two-day visit to Cyprus.
“By meeting you, I will quench my thirst at the springs of fraternity,” he said.
Francis was yesterday to meet Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the head of the Church of Greece Archbishop Ieronymos.
He was then scheduled to see members of Greece’s small Catholic community.
“The Holy Father’s presence in Greece is a boost for us... Catholics in Greece must take advantage of it,” Markos Foscolos, parish priest of St Nicholas on the island of Tinos, told reporters this week.
Catholic numbers have been boosted in the past few years, with between 50,000 and 60,000 local Catholics being joined by another 250,000 from the Philippines, Poland and African countries.
Up to 2,000 police would be deployed in Athens to monitor possible disruptions by Orthodox hardliners, which blame the Catholics for the Schism and the 1204 sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
“They will be few, but loud,” said Petros Panagiotopoulos, a theologian at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki.
Relations with the Church of Greece are much better than they were ahead of John Paul’s visit, Pierre Salembier, head of the Jesuit Catholic community in Greece, told reporters.
However, he said there were still some “known anti-Catholic fanatics” within the church’s governing body.
The bishop of Piraeus called the pope’s visit “immoral.”
In Cyprus on Friday, Francis condemned “slavery” and “torture” in migrant camps, drawing parallels with World War II. The Cypriot government said 50 migrants, including two Cameroonians stuck for months in the divided island’s buffer zone, would be relocated to Italy thanks to Francis.
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