In Greece, Pope to seek deeper ties with eastern churches

ATHENS – Pope Francis is starting the 2nd limb of a five-day sojourn to Cyprus and Greece aimed astatine bolstering precocious mended ties betwixt the Vatican and Greek Orthodox churches.

Francis is acceptable to get successful Greece's superior connected Saturday for meetings astir an emerging confederation betwixt the eastbound and occidental branches of Christianity to respond to clime alteration and different large planetary problems.

The pope's travel to the portion besides has focused connected the plight of asylum-seekers arsenic immoderate European nations harden their borderline power policies.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II became the archetypal Catholic person to sojourn Greece successful much than 1,200 years. Francis has accelerated interfaith initiatives arsenic the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches effort to displacement from centuries of contention and mistrust toward collaboration.

In Athens, Francis volition conscionable the person of Greece’s Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, arsenic good arsenic with the country’s governmental leadership, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

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Authorities banned play protests and ample nationalist gatherings successful parts of cardinal Athens and said up to 4,000 constabulary officers volition beryllium connected work successful the metropolis for the pope’s visit.

At his gathering with the Orthodox religion enactment successful Cyprus Friday, Francis expressed regret implicit the “centuries of division” betwixt the 2 churches.

Francis invited Orthodox Christian and different spiritual leaders to the Vatican successful October to motion a clime declaration. Supporters of greater Vatican-Orthodox practice reason that it could assistance beleaguered Christian communities successful the Middle East and North Africa.

Orthodox Churches are besides seeking alliances arsenic they are progressive successful a deepening quality implicit the independency of the Ukrainian religion which was historically governed by the Russian Orthodox Church.

“I deliberation the beingness of the pope successful Greece and Cyprus signals a instrumentality to the mean narration that we should person ... truthful that we tin determination toward what is astir important of all: the unity of the Christian world,” Ioannis Panagiotopoulos, an subordinate prof of divinity and religion past astatine Athens University, told The Associated Press.

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“So this travel is precise important and it means we tin person a existent treatment astir the large issues, similar migration.”

Francis volition conscionable with members of Greece’s tiny Catholic assemblage and connected Sunday volition instrumentality to the Aegean Sea land of Lesbos, wherever helium visited 5 years agone to conscionable with migrants astatine a detention campy there. He brought a twelve location with him aboard the papal plane. The pope’s sojourn ends Monday.

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Theodora Tongas successful Athens contributed. ___ Follow Gatopoulos astatine https://twitter.com/dgatopoulos

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