Pope Francis arrived in Slovakia for a four-day visit, where he will meet with Holocaust survivors and members of the Roma community.
Francis, who briefly visited Hungary and called for believers to be “grounded and open” after meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was greeted by President Zuzana Caputova in Bratislava.
To mark his arrival, bells tolled in all of Slovakia’s 2,627 Catholic churches at the exact time his plane landed.
Francis is due to deliver an address later on Sunday at the Vatican embassy in Slovakia — a predominantly Catholic country with a population of 5.4 million people.
Meeting Christian and Jewish leaders in Hungary, Pope Francis warned of “the threat of antisemitism still lurking in Europe and elsewhere.”
Pope Francis is due to meet Slovakia’s Jewish community, which was decimated by the Holocaust.
