VATICAN CITY — Leaders of the Eastern Catholic Churches have enthusiastically welcomed an address that Pope Leo XIV gave on Wednesday in which he extolled their liturgies and encouraged members of those Churches in their suffering and persecutions. 

In his speech in the Paul VI Hall to Eastern Church leaders taking part in a jubilee gathering in Rome May 12-14, Pope Leo spoke of the importance of preserving and promoting the Christian East, underlined the “immense” contribution of the Eastern Churches, and how their liturgies and traditions serve as an example for the worldwide Church. 

The Holy Father also drew attention to the plight of the persecuted, especially in the Middle East, and pointed out that his earlier predecessor, Leo XIII, was the first pope to devote a document to the dignity of the Eastern Churches, his 1894 apostolic letter, Orientalium Dignitas (The Dignity of the Oriental Churches). 

The “heartfelt appeal” of the 19th century pontiff is just as relevant to today, Pope Leo said, when many Catholics in the region have been “forced to flee their homelands because of war and persecution, instability and poverty, and risk losing not only their native lands, but also, when they reach the West, their religious identity.” 

“As a result, with the passing of generations, the priceless heritage of the Eastern Churches is being lost,” he said. 

The Holy Father underlined the need, as Leo XIII did, “to preserve and promote the Christian East, especially in the diaspora,” while also pledging to find ways to “concretely support” them in preserving “their living traditions.” 

Meanwhile, he urged that persecuted Christians — Eastern and Latin, especially in the Middle East — be “given the opportunity, and not just in words, to remain in their native lands with all the rights needed for a secure existence.” 

“Please, let us strive for this!” he implored. 

Leo XIV stressed how much the Church “needs you,” adding that the “contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense!” 

Importance of Eastern Liturgies

He spoke of the “great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty!” 

Leo XIV also said it is “likewise important to rediscover, especially in the Christian West, a sense of the primacy of God, the importance of mystagogy [mystical doctrines] and the values so typical of Eastern spirituality: constant intercession, penance, fasting, and weeping for one’s own sins and for those of all humanity (penthos)!” 

The Holy Father said he believed it was therefore vital to “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.” 

Eastern Christian spirituality, he went on, manages to combine “the drama of human misery” with the “wonder of God’s mercy, so that our sinfulness does not lead to despair” but rather “opens us to accepting the gracious gift of becoming creatures who are healed, divinized and raised to the heights of heaven.” 

He underlined the importance of asking for the “grace to see the certainty of Easter in every trial of life and not to lose heart,” and recalled the words of Eastern Church Father St. Isaac of Nineveh: “The greatest sin is not to believe in the power of the Resurrection.” 

The Pope closed by focusing on peace, saying that Eastern Catholics, whom he remembered Pope Francis calling “martyr Churches” due to the extent of their suffering, are best placed to “sing a song of hope even amid the abyss of violence.” 

The violence they have suffered, in the Middle East as well as Ukraine, Tigray and the Caucuses, “ought to provoke outrage because lives are being sacrificed in the name of military conquest,” he said, while also provoking a resounding appeal “not so much of the Pope, but of Christ himself, who repeats: ‘Peace be with you!’”

He pledged to do his part in helping to foster Christ’s peace which, he said, “is not sepulchral silence,” and stressed that the Holy See “is always ready to help bring enemies together” to dialogue and recover “the dignity of peace.” 

Lastly, he urged the Churches of the East to be exemplary, “especially in the Synod of Bishops,” so they may be places of “fraternity and authentic co-responsibility,” free from “all worldly attachments” and tendencies “contrary to communion” so they can “remain faithful in obedience and in evangelical witness.” 

Positive Reactions

Responding to the speech, Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan, Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, told the Regiter that the Pope’s words were “proof of what the Risen Lord said to Peter: ‘Confirm your brothers.’” 

The Holy Spirit, he added, “has given a magnificent gift to the universal Church with the election of Leo XIV as successor to Peter, thus fulfilling Jesus' promise to be with His Church until the end of time.” 

Patriarch Younan, who was present at the audience in the Paul VI Hall, said the Eastern Catholic Churches, founded by the Apostles and their disciples, “have been enduring terrible trials for centuries for the name of Jesus.” They do not “ask for privileges, nor do they complain or lament persecution in their homelands, but they need to be confirmed in the faith in order to preserve their spirituality, liturgy, and culture, which enrich the whole Church,” he said. 

Referring to Pope Leo’s concerns about the loss of patrimony of the Church of the East as they have been driven out of the region by persecution, Patriarch Younan said the Pope had made “a very significant observation of the dread of the dangers that threaten the very survival of Christians in the East, both in their countries of origin and abroad.” 

“Christians in the Middle East need peace,” he said. “Chaos is the worst enemy of all minorities, especially of Christians prepared to endure persecution individually; but the very survival of their Churches is at stake! In this Jubilee Year of Hope, we have full confidence that Pope Leo will translate his words into actions, because he cares deeply about the survival of the Eastern Churches.”

Father Benedict Kiely, founder of Nasarean.org, a US-based charity assisting persecuted Christians in the Middle East, echoed Patriarch Younan’s support for Pope Leo’s comments regarding the persecuted, saying he was “extremely encouraged” that, in his first week, the Pontiff had “strongly addressed” the issue.

He told the Register he was “particularly grateful” that Leo spoke of Middle Eastern Christians “who have, as he said, ‘persevered’ and stayed in their homelands, despite persecution.” And he praised the Pope for reminding the Church of the West “how much it needed the Church of the East and how it is vital to learn more about them” — something, Father Kiely said, he has been “wanting to hear for many years.” 

Archbishop Warda’s Response

Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil said he read the Pope’s discourse twice, saying it showed the Holy Spirit is “giving the Church the Pope that the Church needs for the time,” and is “teaching us always how to read the signs of the times.”

The Chaldean archbishop in the Kurdistan region of Iraq said he especially welcomed how the Pope expressed such appreciation for the Eastern Church’s rich liturgical heritage, saying that it was a “call for responsibility” in light of recent “superficial reforms” which, he said, “have really led to a kind of desecration of these liturgies.” 

Archbishop Warda was referring to several liturgical reforms in recent decades in the Chaldean Catholic Church that have aimed to make the liturgy more accessible to people today but which have also attracted some criticism. The reforms include changes to liturgical translations, making the Mass versus populum, and the removal of some traditional elements. 

The Chaldean archbishop from the Kurdistan region of Iraq told the Register how much he also valued the Pope’s emphasis on peace, a theme that Leo has consistently stressed since his election last week. The Holy Father is committed to working on this “wholeheartedly,” the Iraqi archbishop said. 

He also said Pope Leo was giving “hope” to Christians by urging them to stay in their lands, saying they come from a Church of the Martyrs, belong to a “Church of hope,” and that their “hope is real.” 

Pope Leo, Archbishop Warda concluded, is telling Eastern Catholics to “persevere, that God is always with you, that He never left you for 2,000 years, and He will never leave you again.”