The phlegmatic Swiss cardinal who has led the Catholic Church’s unity office since 2010 is preparing with cautious optimism for the historic meeting of the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury with Pope Leo XIV

Soon after announcing the Second Vatican Council in 1959, Pope John XXIII established the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Its initial purpose was twofold: to invite other Christian Churches to send observers to the council, and to prepare documents on ecumenism – an area that would become central to the council’s mission of aggiornamento. Following the promulgation of Unitatis redintegratio in 1964 – a decree that marked a decisive switch in the Catholic Church’s approach to divisions between Christians, from exhorting schismatics to return to Rome to calling for unity among the People of God – and the council’s conclusion the following year, the body was made permanent. Today, as the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, it operates at the intersection of theology, ­diplomacy and geopolitics, charged with ­carrying forward one of Vatican II’s most ambitious projects.

For the past 16 years it has been led by Cardinal Kurt Koch, a former Bishop of Basel. Born in Emmenbrücke, Switzerland, in 1950 – he turned 76 on 15 March – Koch’s doctoral dissertation was on the theology of the German Protestant theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg and he has shown particular interest in dialogue with the Orthodox Churches. Appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, he remained in post under Pope Francis and continues to lead the department under Leo: a continuity figure who bridges three papacies. In addition to overseeing dialogue with other Christian Churches and ecclesial communities, Koch is also responsible for relations with Judaism through the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. It is an ambitious brief. At a time when geopolitical tensions are increasingly entangled with fraught ecclesial and interfaith divisions, the work of his department is as complex, and as fragile, as ever.

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