Leo XIV tells Eastern Churches, ‘You are precious,’ adds that ‘ War is never inevitable’
In the Paul VI Hall, the pontiff met with Eastern Catholics together with their patriarchs and metropolitans, who are in Rome for the Jubilee. "The Church needs you,” he told them. To this end, it is necessary to “preserve and promote the Christian East, especially in the diaspora.” In his address, he mentioned Ephrem the Syrian and Isaac of Nineveh. With respect to the wars ravaging the East, “The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together,” Leo said. Jannik Sinner and a tennis delegation, the sport practised by the pontiff, attended a private audience.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – A colourful and joyful crowd waving various flags, with many from Ukraine and Lebanon, welcomed Pope Leo XIV this morning in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican.
“I am happy to be with you and to devote one of the first audiences of my pontificate to the Eastern faithful,” the pope told the participants in the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches.
The event (12-14 May) includes a series of celebrations in Rome in the basilicas of St Peter and St Mary Major, following different rites: Ethiopian, Armenian, Coptic, Syro-Eastern, Syro-Western, and Byzantine.
The Eastern Catholics came together with their patriarchs and metropolitans. "You are precious," Pope Leo XIV told them.
Looking at them, the pontiff explained that his thoughts are for the “diversity of [...] origins", as well as the “glorious history and the bitter sufferings that many of your communities have endured or continue to endure.”
The pontiff cited Pope Francis, who in June 2024 said: “[T]he Eastern Churches are to be ‘cherished and esteemed for the[ir] unique spiritual and sapiential traditions’.”
But the bishop of Rome also mentioned Pope Leo XIII, the pontiff who inspired his name for his attention to social issues in the Church, “the first Pope to devote a specific document to the dignity of your Churches," namely the Apostolic Letter Orientalium Dignitas (1894).
“Over a century ago, Leo XIII pointed out that ‘preserving the Eastern rites is more important than is generally realized’.” To this end, the former said that “‘any Latin-Rite missionary, whether a member of the secular or regular clergy, who by advice or support draws any Eastern-Rite Catholic to the Latin Rite’ ought to be ‘dismissed and removed from his office’.”
“We willingly reiterate this appeal to preserve and promote the Christian East, especially in the diaspora.” Indeed, “The Church needs you," Leo XIV stressed. Describing the contribution of the East "immense", he underlined how important it is for the "Christian West" to rediscover its peculiarities.
“It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism,” he said. “Your traditions of spirituality, ancient yet ever new, are medicinal. In them, the drama of human misery is combined with wonder at God’s mercy, so that our sinfulness does not lead to despair”.
Leo XIV called on the faithful to pray like Saint Ephrem the Syrian: “Glory to you, who laid your cross as a bridge over death”, following with a reference to another saint of the Eastern tradition, Isaac of Nineveh, who wrote that “the greatest sin is not to believe in the power of the Resurrection”.
Pope Leo XIV begun today's audience precisely by announcing that "Christ is risen", i.e. “words that Eastern Christians in many lands never tire of repeating during the Easter season”. Indeed, “Who, better than you, can sing a song of hope even amid the abyss of violence? Who, better than you, who have experienced the horrors of war so closely that Pope Francis referred to you as 'martyr Churches’?”
Turning to the conflicts that affect the regions in which the Eastern Churches are called to operate, he lamented that “From the Holy Land to Ukraine, from Lebanon to Syria, from the Middle East to Tigray and the Caucasus, how much violence do we see!”
“Rising up from this horror, from the slaughter of so many young people, which ought to provoke outrage because lives are being sacrificed in the name of military conquest, there resounds an appeal: the appeal not so much of the Pope, but of Christ himself, who repeats: ‘Peace be with you!’”
Peace means “reconciliation, forgiveness, and the courage to turn the page and start anew,” Leo XIV added, echoing his first words as pope last Thursday. “I will make every effort so that this peace may prevail," he added.
“The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace,” Leo XIV said to those who are still at war on Earth.
Peace is what the “peoples of the world” want. To reach this, the pope turned to their "leaders," to those who hold the fate of many nations in their power.
“Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable. Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them. Those who make history are the peacemakers, not those who sow seeds of suffering. Our neighbours are not first our enemies, but our fellow human beings; not criminals to be hated, but other men and women with whom we can speak.”
He renewed the appeal he made in his first Regina Caeli on Sunday, following his predecessors, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. “The Church will never tire of repeating: let weapons be silenced,” he said.
The pontiff thanked “all those who, in silence, prayer and self-sacrifice, are sowing seeds of peace,” especially “those Christians – Eastern and Latin alike – who, above all in the Middle East, persevere and remain in their homelands, resisting the temptation to abandon them.”
The pontiff thanked the “brothers and sisters of the East” for being “lights in our world". “Continue to be outstanding for your faith, hope, and charity, and nothing else,” he told them.
“May your Churches be exemplary, and may your Pastors promote communion with integrity, especially in the Synods of Bishops, that they may be places of fraternity and authentic co-responsibility.”
Finally, the Holy Father emphasised how much "the splendor of the Christian East" today cries out for "freedom from all worldly attachments and from every tendency contrary to communion”.
This morning Pope Leo XIV, an avid tennis player, met privately in the Vatican with a delegation from the Italian Tennis Federation, which is currently hosting a major international tournament. The group included Italian tennis star Jannik Sinner, who is currently first in the ATP rankings.
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