Greeting to participants in the International Conference
“Christian Orient – Undiscovered Heritage of Humanity”

(Opole, Poland 26 September 2023)

Dear Dean Protoczny,
Dear speakers and participants,

I warmly greet you on the occasion of this International Conference “Christian Orient – undiscovered heritage of humanity”. I am confident that the comprehensive program of this conference will highlight the great and beautiful richness of the Christian East and its as yet undiscovered heritage. The fact that all Christians can receive rich gifts from the Christian East was expressed by St. Pope John Paul II with a meaningful metaphor: for the present and future of Christianity, it is crucial that it learns to breathe even more intensively with both lungs, its Latin-Western lung and its Greco-Eastern lung. In order to emphasize this objective, Pope John Paul II declared the two Slavic saints Cyril and Methodius co-patrons of Europe in 1980, so that they would stand alongside Saint Benedict who had been declared patron of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964. With his apostolic exhortation “Orientale Lumen” in 1995, he reminded us that the true light of the world, Jesus Christ, shone upon us in the East of the world: “Ex oriente lux”!

The theme of your conference can also illustrate once again that the very essence of the ecumenical dialogue consists in the exchange of gifts given by the Holy Spirit to the various Christian communities. To learn from the gifts of the Eastern tradition is particularly important if we consider that over time the world in the East and the world in the West have increasingly drifted apart, so that people could no longer understand each other. This process largely contributed to the later schism in the Church between East and West.

Finding unity again among all Christians is the great task of the ecumenical movement today. An essential step towards this goal is the effort to know and appreciate each other. The Christian East has so many rich gifts to offer that all can greatly be benefitted by them. As Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, I am convinced that this conference will also make a significant contribution to the search for the unity of the Church in East and West.

Having a better knowledge of the heritage of the Christian East is also important insofar as many Christian communities in the East have to live in very difficult situations today. They merit our solidarity and support; I am convinced that an East from which Christians are forced to emigrate would no longer be the true East. Countering this phenomenon must be the concern of all of us.

For these reasons, I was happy to accept the invitation to be the honorary patron of your international conference. I thank the Opole Theological Faculty for organizing this conference and wish all participants rewarding insights and a fruitful outcome. In the hope that the light from the East continues to shine into our world today, I greet you warmly.