In conversation with the prefect of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches who illustrates the pastoral aid dedicated to them for the Jubilee. The Dicastery has prepared the guide for the 2025 Jubilee of the Eastern Churches, to be celebrated from May 12–14, displaying the beauty of Christian traditions of the Eastern world.
Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti , Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, prepared the pastoral aid in view of the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches. A tool designed for these faithful but also for those of the Latin Church who will have the opportunity to get to know more closely the richness of the traditions of the Eastern world and still very present in the West and in particular in Rome.
FULL TEXT Guide : https://www.orientchurch.va/images/ESTRATTO_LIBRO_DCO_GIUBILEO_ITA__19122024.pdf
This was revealed in an interview with Vatican News; where the cardinal explained, "the aim is to speak to the Easterners, making them notice that there are specific riches in their traditions that the Jubilee can bring out clearly, with passion, with enthusiasm also for their faithful, especially in this time of grave difficulty for all the Eastern Churches (Middle East, Ukraine, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea ...). Because the aids, which they themselves will then develop, also draw from a Jubilee sensitivity, valorizing the treasures they have. The second part is very intriguing because it is the history of Eastern Rome. What emerges from a brief but well documented summary is that Rome has constantly experienced the presence of Easterners and very conspicuous Eastern communities. This concerns not only the Empire, but also the Church. The Roman Church has been strongly inhabited by Eastern communities that have long preserved their own specificity. The reader will be surprised that eleven Popes were Greeks and that almost ten were Syrians. Which means that this was not a marginal presence. Rome, caput mundi, was also a city in which the Orientals identified themselves as integrated into its structure, and not simply as small communities of emigrants."
He continued; In the East, it takes courage to live. To live today despite the fact that they try to kill you. It is such a basic form of courage that it would seem obvious. Instead, for Easterners it is not at all obvious, and for us it might not even be in the future. The reason why this document is also useful to Westerners is first of all to understand that there are very ancient forms of expression of Christianity, from the very time of Christ, that we ignore and that constitute the unity in the diversity of Christian identity. It is not monolithic: we also saw this in the recent Synod, a plural reality in which we may not understand each other, not because of bad will but because of diversity of roots. Being together, exchanging the peculiarities of each, was one of the great discoveries of the Synod. This document has a bit of the same purpose: to make known that on this theme there can be different components and sensibilities. Courage is what is most required to celebrate the Jubilee. Passing through the Door of mercy, of hope, is impossible in a world of deaths, whether physical or interior deaths.
He explained; the Pope often speaks of a piecemeal war, and now the pieces risk coming together very easily. Think about what is happening in these hours in the United States: the inauguration of the new president. The whole world is looking there. The Messiah is considered this new event that everyone thinks will save us, through the unpredictability of things and of the person. It is as if we were saying: something good could come, since 'it cannot be worse than this'. The secular messianism that we are experiencing at this moment is curious. Everyone is looking to Washington. Here, courage for the Easterners is knowing that as always they have suffered, they are suffering even now but this does not extinguish them. And we will be with them, in the sense that we Western Catholics will not abandon them, whether they are Catholic or Orthodox. Christianity is one and one is the hope of the world. We cannot put our divisions at this time before the elements of unity that have incorporated us in Jesus Christ who is one and cannot but be one because we will not be able to break Christ.
We have a Western monasticism and an Eastern monasticism: they understand each other very well because there is a monastic anthropology. Here I refer you to the long paragraph of the Orientale lumen of John Paul II on monasticism in the East.
The Jubilee is a great opportunity to seek God even by those who do not immediately identify with a religious confession, a bit like what happened when John Paul II died: we were sure that many non-practising people had come to the funeral. The same phenomenon should happen when passing through the Holy Door: that is, the ability to perceive that we all need a door of forgiveness that at the same time shapes us (the door contains), defends us (it can close in the face of danger) and allows us to enter a space of intimacy (because it forces us to be “inside” together).
Insisting and contrasting the diversity of the Eastern rite Catholic Churches among themselves and the division of these Churches with respect to the Orthodox Churches, from which most originate, is something that we cannot afford today, while we are fighting for survival. Today we must do it together, as Christians, because we do not know if our life will be guaranteed precisely because we are Christians.
The Eastern world experiences Lent in very strict terms. One of the things that most fascinates Easterners is knowing how much you fast. It may be a naive question but, generally, it results or starts from the perception that fasting is a sign of how seriously you take God and how much you understand that God is the only essential thing. Therefore, you must distance yourself from all the small idols that systematically tend to replace him. Fasting is this, in reality: abstinence from what risks becoming the center of the day, taking the place of God. Prayer and fasting, which increase during Lent, are for Easterners the reaffirmation that life belongs to God, space belongs to God. Just like the first Jubilee in the Bible. “ The land is mine ,” says God in Leviticus, “and you are all my servants .” Therefore, if you have given up your land, it returns to you as your property, if you have debts, they are forgiven. How much this model was actually applied is a big question mark, but it is part of Scripture this indication according to which we return every fifty years to the affirmation that God is the only one. On the seventh day God rested to distance himself from his creation and to look upon it with satisfaction.
Cardinal Gugerotti was asked: "is the artistic and cultural heritage of the Eastern Churches not sufficiently known?"
It is not known. There was, decades ago, a document from the then Congregation for Catholic Education, which prescribed that in every Latin seminary there should be a teaching on the Churches of the East. It is probably one of the most disregarded documents among the many disregarded documents that have been produced by the Holy See.
This is very serious for me because it means a partial knowledge of one's own identity. And it also means, potentially, the source of controversy of one against the other or, on the contrary, the presupposition of an ecstatic adoration of the other from oneself: both attitudes that have no foundation and are not at all useful. For example, the exaltation of an abstract East, as an alternative to a rational West... are largely clichés. We see in the other, without knowing him, what we would like to be and are not. And so the other ends up being what we think, because we are not interested in knowing him for what he is. It is a form of cultural colonialism, once again.
All the Eastern places are significant to me. It must be said that in the first millennium a lot was built for the Easterners: monasteries, buildings, icons, temples... starting from the year 1000 many were transformed into places entrusted to Latins but the vestiges are still there.
On February 19, there will be the episcopal ordination of the Undersecretary of our Dicastery, Monsignor Ciampanelli. He wanted the choirs of the Eastern colleges of Rome to sing together with the Cappella Giulia in the celebration in St. Peter's, so that the voices of the East and the West merge in a single liturgy of praise to the one Lord in the most diverse languages.
Edited from Vatican News - https://www.vaticannews.va/it/vaticano/news/2025-01/giubileo-chiese-orientali-cardinale-gugerotti-dicastero.html
https://www.orientchurch.va/pubblicazioni.html
Image by Peter H from Pixabay
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