Pope Francis will land in Nicosia on Dec. 2. It will be his first trip to Cyprus, where around 80 percent of the population is Orthodox. Catholics make up less than three percent, which, from a religious perspective, means it will be a very ecumenical trip.
ANTONIS SKOULLOS
Catholic Cypriot Community
“Let our cultures reunite, maintaining the differences and the diversity of each one of us. We can all live together being different. We can all progress together being different. And we can all achieve together being different.”
The theme of the papal trip to Cyprus is “Comforting each other in faith,” because they hope to find common ground to foster unity among the island's people.
FR. ALAIN BOULOS
“It would be a good push and support for those who already have started to look for common points of faith between sisters and brothers from other communities.”
It will be a delicate trip, from a political perspective. There is tension between Cyprus and Turkey, and between Cyprus and the island's separatist northern region. Cypriots hope that the Pope will spark a dialogue among the different parties.
FR. ALAIN BOULOS
“We cannot live alone. We have to rely on each other. We look into the eyes of any human being and we'll see in him the image of God because we are all created in his image.”
The migration question is a source of social and political tension. Cypriots accuse Turkey of sending migrants through the island's pro-Turkey northern region. In the first 10 months of 2021, the number of refugees who arrived was 38 percent higher than those who arrived in all of 2020.
Some people speculate that Pope Francis will take various refugee families back to Italy, like he did when he visited Lesbos in 2016.
Pope Francis will visit migrants during one of the most important moments of the trip, during which he will also lead an ecumenical prayer in the Catholic Church of the Holy Cross, in Nicosia.
BSB
TR: CT
