Eeklo (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The Orthodox religious leader of Benelux meets the Pope multiple times through his repeated encounters with Athenagoras Peckstadt from Eeklo. “Compared to his predecessors, Francis’ simplicity was very striking,” says Athenagoras Peckstadt.
Metropolitan Athenagoras Peckstadt took the occasion to evaluate Pope Francis after the Pontiff’s passing. When discussing Pope Francis, Peckstadt noted that the current pope showed simpler ways than earlier popes because he preferred unpretentious spaces to official Vatican apartments.
Peckstadt mentioned how Francis actively participated in dialogues regarding Orthodox traditions, especially the practices related to divorce and priestly marriage, but the Church later rejected the latter. According to Peckstadt, Francis served as a reform-oriented leader who dedicated his papacy to the needs of commoners instead of church dogma.
“The man was 88 and had a good life, so given his state of health, his death is not entirely unexpected,”
said Metropolitan Athenagoras Peckstadt in response to the death of Pope Francis.
“I then attracted Francis’ attention by talking about the possibility within the Orthodox Church of being able to remarry after the failure of the marriage. He thought that was a very good thing. He was also an advocate of married priesthood, but he could not realise that within his Catholic Church.”
The Metropolitan also met the previous two popes, John Paul II and Benedict. He recalls how Francis’ simplicity stood out in comparison with them:
“He received us in the refectory where cardinals eat in the house of Santa Marta in the Vatican, while his predecessors offered us a meal in the private apartments at the top of the Vatican.”
“If Benedict was the great theologian who determined the doctrine of the Church, then Francis was a practitioner who stood up for the man in the street, for the good in the world and not so much for the theoretical.”
“I will remember him as a man who wanted to reform things, not least his own status as pope. He did not see himself as a supreme prelate, but as the shepherd of the city of Rome. He did not see his universal role as a ministry as an exercise of power.”
The coming weeks will be full of speculation about the successors of Pope Francis. Athenagoras Peckstadt sees the cardinal of Manila in the Philippines as a major contender.
“During the synod he made a deep impression with his capacities as moderator. But also the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Pietro Parolin, and the Congolese cardinal, Fridolin Ambongo, the archbishop of Kinshasa, are mentioned. It is sometimes said that one goes into conclave as ‘papabile’, as a possible pope, but comes out as a cardinal. What is certain is that it will be neither a Benedict nor a Francis.”
What is the religious and demographic context of Orthodox-Catholic relations in the Benelux region?
Religious practices in the Benelux heavily showcase Catholicism as its traditional form, but the denomination faces decreasing popularity nowadays. Belgians account for 52% of Catholic followers among their population while the Dutch make up 20% of believers, and Orthodox Christians combined form a 2-3% minority, primarily from Romanian, Greek and Russian immigration.
Leading the Orthodox Church in the Benelux since 2013 is Metropolitan Athenagoras Peckstadt, who reports to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople with a goal of advancing Catholic-Orthodox interfaith understanding.
Pope Francis pursued ecumenical harmony as pope from 2013 to 2023 through his historic meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew I in 2014, which became a milestone in his approach to Orthodox Christians. Peckstadt in Belgium maintains strong working relationships between its Catholic and Orthodox religious organisations through their shared programs that help refugees.
Theological disagreements regarding papal primacy, together with clerical celibacy practices, persist as points of unresolvable dispute. A policy through the Vatican in 2016 enabled Anglican priests to become Catholic while keeping their wives, which started a new dialogue about married priests in Catholicism with the pope.
The quantity of secular individuals, together with evolving religious diversity patterns between communities, has reshaped interreligious relationships. The Pew Research analysis from 2021 revealed that religious service participation among Belgians had reached less than 10%, although Catholic and Orthodox institutions maintain their institutional links.
The death of Pope Francis has directed focus towards the possible Vatican policy adjustments towards decentralisation and ecumenical activities, which were central focuses throughout his papacy.
