Pope Francis skips many niceties in announcing a visit to Lesbos

By ERASMUS

NOT for the first time, Pope Francis has responded to a moral crisis with a spectacular gesture that transcends all the niceties of correct procedure and inter-religious diplomacy. It has been announced that he and Patriarch Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based cleric who is “first among equals” in the eastern Orthodox church will visit the island of Lesbos, the epicentre of an international crisis triggered by an influx of refugees bent on reaching Europe. It seems this will happen on April 15th.

If you imagine that such a trip would be easy to arrange, you’d be badly mistaken. For historic reasons, the Orthodox Church of Greece is ultra-sensitive in its dealings with the Vatican, and even has its problems with the Istanbul-based Patriarchate which is its own ultimate spiritual overlord. When John Paul II visited Athens in 2001, it was one of his hardest foreign trips; he was grudgingly received by the then Archbishop of Athens, Christodoulos, who gave him a public scolding over the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by Latin soldiers, for which the pontiff apologised.

Meanwhile the current Archbishop of Athens, Ieronymos, has problems with the Patriarch (currently undergoing a flare-up) because of administrative squabbles over Greek territory. Parts of Greece, like Rhodes, are under the Patriarch’s direct authority, other parts undisputedly under the archbishop. There is a third category of places, including northern Greece and Lesbos, which are ceremonially under the Patriarch but where the archdiocese of Athens claims de facto control. Last month the Patriarch and his episcopal advisers sent a pastoral letter for circulation in those places but the Athens hierarchy blocked it. Hence the Athenian bishops are extra-keen to stress that the Patriarch is coming to Lesbos at their suggestion, not off his own bat.

All that elucidates the prickly tone of the announcement this week by the ruling Holy Synod in Athens. As it explained, the pope had expressed a desire to make a brief visit to a Greek island in order to “mobilise world opinion for an immediate cessation of the hostilities in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern region which are severely afflicting Christian communities." The Synod had agreed, on the understanding that it would be a brief, informal visit of a "humanitarian and symbolic" character. It was at the Synod’s suggestion that the island of Lesbos was chosen, and it was the Synod’s initiative to include the Patriarch. Further announcements made clear that the pope would be received by Greece’s worldly authorities, namely President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who would greet him as a fellow political leader. (How informal is that, you might ask?) This element of secular diplomacy will help to protect the archbishop from theological hard-liners who might accuse him (as they accused his predecessor) of betraying Orthodoxy by hobnobbing with papists.

It’s a fair bet that Pope Francis doesn’t care much about any of this. By all appearances he is more concerned about the refugees who are penned up on Lesbos after sailing in from Turkey, and about the controversial deal to send some back. On March 25th, as Western Christians remembered the Crucifixion of their faith's founder, he made his feelings eloquently plain: "O Cross of Christ, today we see you in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas which have become insatiable cemeteries, reflections of our indifferent and anaesthetised conscience.”