Pope Francis in Cyprus.
The plane, an Ita Airways Airbus A320 with the celebratory livery "Born in 2021", took off shortly after 11 from the "Leonardo Da Vinci" airport in Rome.
Landing at Larnaca airport at 15:00 local time.
The Pontiff's return to Italy is scheduled for Monday 6 December at 12:35, at Rome-Ciampino airport.
Before leaving Casa Santa Marta on his apostolic journey to Cyprus and Greece, Pope Francis greeted about 12 refugees accompanied by His Holiness's Almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski.
The migrants, now residing in Italy, come from Syria, Congo, Somalia and Afghanistan.
They have passed through the Lesvos camp in recent years and were welcomed upon their arrival by the Community of Sant'Egidio.
Among them, some had come with the Pope on the papal plane in 2016.
"
There are and there are no walls in the Catholic Church: it is a common home, it is the place of relationships, it is the coexistence of diversities
", said
Pope Francis
during the meeting with priests, men and women religious, deacons, catechists, associations and ecclesial movements of Cyprus, in the Maronite Cathedral of Nicosia. The Pope first greeted the Maronite Church, turning his "worried" thought about the crisis that is going through Lebanon. Hence the Latin Church, which "thanks to the presence of so many migrant brothers and sisters", is a "'multicolored' people", "a real meeting place between different ethnic groups and cultures". "With your fraternity you can remind everyone, the whole of Europe, that to build a future worthy of man it is necessary to work together, overcome divisions, break down walls and cultivate the dream of unity. We need to welcome and integrate ourselves, to walk together,to be all brothers and sisters! ".
THE JOURNEY TO CYPRUS AND GREECE -
"I will have the opportunity to approach humanity wounded in the flesh of so many migrants in search of hope - declares the Pontiff -: I will go to Lesvos". Today begins the five-day journey (from 2 to 6 December), 35 / o of the Pontificate, which brings to 55 the countries visited by Bergoglio. And it will still be a journey to the borders of Europe - indeed, "to the ancient sources of Europe", as the Pope says in the video message to the two peoples to which he is headed - as well as in the middle of the Mediterranean: the sea has now become "a great cemetery" , but that in the purposes of the Pontiff, must return to unite, rather than divide.
It is precisely the tragedies of migrants, while from one end of Europe to the other, between the Channel, the border with Belarus, and the "mare nostrum" itself, will be one of the crucial chapters. The Pope, in addition to meeting the migrants in an ecumenical prayer in Cyprus, will return on Sunday to the "limbo" of refugees in eternal waiting in Lesbos, which he already visited in April 2016, where perhaps there will no longer be the unlivable contours of the camp of Moria, destroyed by a fire in September last year, but conditions in the Mavrovouni Identification Center are certainly not easy. And above all,
the possibility - given as an official by the Cypriot government - is taking shape that the Pope from Cyprus has a group of refugees transferred to Italy
, repeating what he did on Lesbos five years ago.
