Catholic Church leaders in Cyprus and Greece have welcomed surprise plans for an early December visit by the Pope, as a chance to foster dialogue and improve links with the wider Catholic world. However, several Orthodox dignitaries have protested over the move, warning it would fuel scandal and division.
“The Pope’s visit to Greece will be above all a summons to faith, a call for openness to God and neighbour,” said Archbishop Theodoros Kontidis of Athens. “This country’s Catholics are made up of many different groups, Poles, Albanians, Filipinos and Africans, as well as native Greeks. They need the visit to strengthen their own unity and their links with the universal Church, and there will be a good atmosphere for it.”
The 65-year-old Jesuit archbishop, who also administers Greece's Rhodes archdiocese, spoke after Vatican confirmation that Francis will travel to Nicosia in Cyprus on 2-4 December, and then to the island of Lesbos and Athens on 4-6 December. He told Vatican Radio Francis was well known and popular among Greeks of all denominations and none, who would welcome his appeals for cooperation on behalf of the uprooted and downtrodden.
Meanwhile, the head of the Maronite Catholic church in Cyprus said Christians on the Mediterranean island hoped the Papal pilgrimage would bring “a time for hope and faith” after 47 years of Turkish occupation of its northern territories. “It’s a moment of grace for all of us,” Archbishop Salim Sfeir told Vatican Radio. “In this way, the Pope is continuing his travels to the peripheries. His presence will be a presence of dialogue and peace”.
The five-day pilgrimage, confirmed by Rome last weekend, will be the first by Francis since his April 2016 visit to Middle East refugees on Lesbos, and the first by a Pope to Cyprus since a stopover by Benedict XVI in June 2010. Pope John Paul II also paid a historic visit to Athens in May 2001, the first by a Roman pontiff since the thirteenth century.
In his Vatican Radio interview, Archbishop Kontidis said pressure from refugees arriving on Greece's Aegean islands had lessened in 2021, but added that he believed Pope Francis would still seek to “arouse consciences” to the plight of those seeking shelter and protection.
However, several leaders of Greece's predominant Orthodox church have protested plans for the visit, including the arch-conservative Metropolitan Serafim of Pireus, who warned Greeks on Sunday the “immoral visit” risked “contamination by heretical evildoers, unrepentant in our sacred lands”.
In an open letter on Monday, Metropolitan Andreas of Konitsa told the centre-right government of premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis he recognised the state's right to invite Francis for the second centenary of Greece's 1821 independence, but was concerned at “what the Greek church will do when the heretic of the Vatican steps on the sanctified soil of our homeland”.
He said: “The heretical Papacy has never helped the Greek nation and Orthodoxy,” the metropolitan added. “If our Synod participates in events honouring Francis, it’s absolutely certain this will create a huge scandal. For these reasons, I strongly protest against the arrival of the Revd. Francis Bergoglio in Orthodox Greece”.
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