(31 May 2019) Pope Francis began a three-day pilgrimage to Romania on Friday that in many ways is completing the 1999 trip by St. John Paul II that marked the first-ever papal visit to a majority Orthodox country.
Francis also met with the leadership of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the latest of his foreign trips to poor countries where Catholics are a minority.
Francis and Patriarch Daniel, leader of the Romanian Orthodox Church, recited the Our Father prayer in the Orthodox Cathedral, a towering new construction funded in part by a $200,000 donation by John Paul when he visited in 1999.
Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti stressed that while the two religious leaders would physically be praying in the same place, they would not pray together, an important distinction for many Orthodox.
Ordinary faithful were allowed to join, in sharp contrast to Francis' recent visit to Bulgaria, when he was allowed to pray in the Orthodox cathedral in Sofia, but alone.
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