From 1st to 6th July, card. Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, will be in Eritrea to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the death of Saint Giustino De Jacobis, an Italian missionary considered to be the ‘Father’ of the Catholic Church in Eritrea. On the invitation of the Eritrean Catholic Church, as stated in a release from the Congregation, “the cardinal, along with the Apostolic Nuncio to Eritrea and Sudan, mgr. Leo Boccardi, will visit the three Eastern Catholic Eparchies of Asmara, Barentu and Keren, where he will meet bishops, priests, religious and lay people, and will give Benedict XVI’s regards and Blessing as well as the sympathy of the Congregation for Eastern Churches”. The Lazarist missionary saint Giustino De Jacobis (1800 - 1860), appointed “Praefectus Apostolicus Abissiniae et finitimarum regionum” in 1839 and ordained bishop in 1849, was canonised by Paul VI in 1975. Eritrea’s three Eparchies belong to the Church sui iuris of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which is under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Congregation. The number of devotees in Eritrea is 66,443 in the district of Asmara, 40,794 in the district of Barentu, and 45,400 in the district of Keren (Papal Yearbook 2010).

© SIR - 30 june 2010