The pontiff landed shortly before 3 pm (10 am in Argentina) at Larnaca airport, 50 kilometers from the capital Nicosia, after a three-hour flight from Rome.
This is the second visit of a pope to Cyprus, an island populated especially by Orthodox Christians, after the one made by Benedict XVI in 2010.
On Thursday morning, the imminent arrival of Francis was felt in Nicosia, where there were many blocked streets, the esplanade of the cathedral was cleaned and the employees decorated with flowers some points through which the Pope will pass.
The pontiff will deliver two speeches in Nicosia, divided since 1974 between the Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, and the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognized only by Turkey.
On Friday, the Pope will celebrate a mass in Nicosia in a stadium, in front of 7,000 faithful and a ecumenical prayer with migrants, close to the “green line”, the demilitarized zone administered by the UN and that divides the city and the island into two parts, a gesture considered particularly symbolic.
The mass will be the only event in which the Catholic community of Cyprus will participate, made up of some 25,000 people, out of a population of one million, the majority of whom are Orthodox.
Among them are between 5 to 7,000 faithful of the Maronite Church, one of the Eastern Catholic churches present in Lebanon and Syria, neighboring countries in crisis.
“It will be a trip to the sources of the apostolic faith and brotherhood among Christians of various denominations,” said Francis at the general audience on Wednesday. Since his election in 2013, he has made 35 trips abroad, counting this one.
Dialogue with the Orthodox, who separated from the Catholic Church in 1054 during the great schism between East and West, is one of the priorities of Francis’ pontificate.
It will also be the occasion to “get closer to wounded humanity” and so many migrants who are looking for hope, “the Pope said on Wednesday.
Francis “goes above all to the most vulnerable and the most marginalized. Today, these people are the migrants who have been forced to leave their countries in the midst of pain and illegality,” the Archbishop of Cyprus told AFP. the Maronites, Selim Sfeir.
According to the Cypriot government, negotiations are under way with the Vatican to organize the transfer of several migrant families to Italy, as happened in 2016 during his first visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, when three Syrian families were transferred to Rome.
Before leaving, the Argentine pope recalled on Wednesday that he will visit again Lesbos, to be close “to humanity wounded in the flesh of so many migrants in search of hope.”
The Cypriot authorities say they receive the highest number of asylum applications from the European Union compared to their population.
The leaders estimate that some 10,000 migrants in an irregular situation arrived in their territory during the first 10 months of the year.
Source From: Ambito
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