Finns meet pope

Samuel Salmi, bishop of the Oulu Diocese in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and other Finnish Lutherans received communion at a Jan. 15 mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, according to the Finnish periodical Kotimaa 24. The Lutherans attended the service after a private meeting with Pope Francis. “I myself accepted [communion],” Salmi told Kotimaa 24, adding “this was not a coincidence.” The delegation visited during the World Council of Churches’ 2016 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. “This week of prayer invites us to reflect on, and bear witness to, our unity in Christ as God’s people,” the pope said in his address at his weekly audience.