Yesterday, May 12, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church met with his delegation in the General Secretariat of the Synod, Cardinal Gretsch, who expressed his hope that the synodal march, which began in 2021, would be “an additional and important step to approach the Orthodox East.”
Your Holiness, we humbly ask you to bless our synodal journey and to accompany us with your personal prayers and the prayers of your Church, so that we know how to put ourselves in listening to the Holy Spirit!” With this special request, Cardinal Mario Grech concluded, yesterday, Friday, his speech to His Holiness Pope Tawadros The second, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark, accompanied by a distinguished delegation from the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Accompanied by the two Deputy Secretariats of the Synod, Monsignor Louis Marin de Saint-Martin and Sister Nathalie Picart, Cardinal Grech introduced the synodal process and recalled how the Eastern Tradition can “help the Catholic Church to better express the common participation of the faithful in the ecclesial life, which finds its source and culmination in the liturgy the divinity, and the conciliar dimension of the episcopate, which finds its fullest expression in the Synod, and the service of unity performed by the head.
“We trust,” continued Cardinal Gretsch, that the Churches of the East can motivate us to promote a healthy decentralization of power, and to better assess the regional and local levels of the synod, whose roots go back to the beginnings of the undivided Church. The synodal march initiated by Pope Francis in 2021 is “an additional and important step to approach the Orthodox East.” For his part, Pope Tawadros II presented some aspects of the life of the Coptic Orthodox Church, while His Eminence Daniel, Metropolitan of Maadi and Al-Basatin, presented the progress of the work of the Holy Synod in which he holds office. Secretary General.
