Bucharest, Romania, May 31, 2019 / 08:00 am
Pope Francis said Friday that Catholics and Orthodox are bonded by a "shared inheritance" of suffering for Christ from the apostles to modern martyrs.
"How many were the martyrs and confessors of the faith! In recent times, how many, from different confessions, stood side by side in prisons to support one another in turn," Pope Francis said May 30 during his apostolic trip to Romania.
"What they suffered for, even to the sacrifice of their lives, is too precious an inheritance to be disregarded or tarnished," he said. "It is a shared inheritance and it summons us to remain close to our brothers and sisters who share it."
In a meeting with Patriarch Daniel and the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Bucharest, Pope Francis highlighted how Catholics and Orthodox suffered together under Romania's former Communist regime.