Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!
“Peace be with you all, dearest brothers and sisters. This is the first greeting of the risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for the flock of God.” These first words, imbued with the peace of Christ, with which the newly elected pope, LEO XIV, chose to address the world, already mark, and will certainly mark, this new pontificate, whose lights intersect with those of the Paschal season. The election of a Church primate, especially in the midst of the Paschal season, is a promise of hope, in a blessed pontifical ministry called to bear witness to the risen Christ, here and now, and to the ends of the earth.
The Orthodox bishops of France welcome the election of the new primate of the Roman Catholic Church, His Holiness Pope LEO XIV, in the person of the American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who in 2023 was entrusted by the late Pope FRANCIS with the Dicastery for Bishops at the Vatican. A doctor of canon law, pastor and missionary, a committed Augustinian, a polyglot, from a family straddling several worlds and cultures, a man of peace known for mastering his files and for always listening, Pope LEO XIV is well equipped to face his office in a disoriented world in search of its compass.
Many challenges await him. First, the challenges internal to the Catholic Church, but also those in the inter-Christian sphere, to work for the good of the witness of Christian unity in today’s world, “so that the world may believe.” Interreligious challenges too, so that religions cease to be instrumentalised by politics and may be and remain a factor of fraternity. Not to mention the environmental challenges, so that the disfigurement of the world, humanity’s “common garden,” may cease; the societal challenges, in a world experiencing an alarming inversion of norms; and above all the geopolitical challenges, so that destructive wars may cease and the dynamics of the “warmongers,” who here and there threaten peace in the world, may be reversed.
The Orthodox bishops of France extend to the new pope and Bishop of Rome, and to all the faithful of the Roman Catholic Church, their warmest congratulations together with their heartfelt Paschal and fraternal greetings. They pray the Lord to grant Pope LEO XIV long life and health, and to support and guide him in his new pontifical office as “shepherd of shepherds” of the Roman Catholic Church.