Pope Leo XIV had a meeting with the participants of the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches on the morning of Wednesday, May 14. The audience, held in Paul VI Hall, brought together 5,000 faithful from the Ethiopian, Armenian, Coptic, East Syriac, and Byzantine rites from various countries.
Leo XIV welcomed the faithful with the greeting commonly used by these rites during Eastertide: “Christ is Risen. Truly, He is Risen.” “I’m happy to meet you and dedicate one of the first encounters of my pontificate to the Eastern faithful,” he said.
Preserving the rites in different cultural contexts
Quoting Francis and Leo XIII, the Pope emphasized the importance of these rites for the Church and the need to preserve them amid other cultures. Leo XIV recalled that many of the faithful live in contexts of war and religious persecution and are forced to leave their homelands. However, due to the difficulty of finding communities that celebrate the same rite, they risk losing not only their homeland but also their religious identity.
“We embrace the call to protect and promote the Christian East, especially in the diaspora; here, beyond establishing Eastern jurisdictions where possible and appropriate, it is necessary to raise awareness among Latin Catholics. In this sense, I ask the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches — to whom I am grateful for their work — to help me define principles, norms, and guidelines through which Latin pastors can concretely support Eastern Catholics in the diaspora, preserving their traditions and enriching the context they live in with their uniqueness.”
‘The Church needs you’
Leo XIV highlighted the richness of Eastern liturgy and the contribution it can make to the West.
“The Church needs you. How great is the contribution the Christian East can offer us today! How much we need to recover the sense of mystery so alive in your liturgies, which involve the whole human person, sing the beauty of salvation, and inspire awe at the divine majesty that embraces human littleness! And how important it is to rediscover, even in the Christian West, the primacy of God, the value of mystagogy, unceasing intercession, penance, fasting, and tears for one’s own sins and those of the whole world (penthos), so typical of Eastern spiritualities!”
He added:
“Your spiritualities, ancient and ever new, are medicinal. In them, the dramatic sense of human misery merges with the wonder of divine mercy, so that our lowliness does not lead to despair but invites us to embrace the grace of being healed, divinized creatures raised to heavenly heights. We must infinitely praise and thank the Lord for this.”
Singing words of hope
Leo XIV also recalled that Eastern faithful, living in contexts of violence, war, and persecution, are those who can most genuinely sing words of hope. He also recalled that Pope Francis once referred to them as “martyr Churches.”
“The peace of Christ is not the deadly silence that follows conflict, nor the result of oppression. It is a gift that restores people and reactivates life. Let us pray for this peace — a peace that is reconciliation, forgiveness, the courage to turn the page and start again.”
A commitment to peace
At the end of his speech, the Pope reaffirmed his commitment to peace:
“To spread this peace, I will do everything I can. The Holy See is available so that enemies may meet, look each other in the eyes, and that people may regain hope and the dignity they deserve — the dignity of peace. People want peace, and I, with my heart in my hand, say to the leaders: let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable.”
Leo XIV concluded by thanking the faithful of the Eastern rites and expressing his wish for them to be an open, transparent, and united Church. “Thank you, thank you, dear brothers and sisters of the East, from where Jesus, the Sun of Justice, rose to make us ‘lights of the world’ (cf. Mt 5:14). Continue shining through faith, hope, and charity — and nothing else.”
Photo: Vatican Media
