The event’s next venue was announced in Paris at the close of the 48th European Youth Meeting, which brought together around 15,000 people from across the continent, including 1,000 from Ukraine.
Addressing a press conference in Paris, Brother Matthew, Prior of the Taizé Community, stressed that Łódź will be the fourth Polish city to host the annual European meeting. In previous years, they were held in Wrocław (1989, 1995, 2019), Warsaw (1999) and Poznań (2009).
Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś, who until mid-December served as the Metropolitan of the Łódź Archdiocese, welcomed the choice of Łódź as the Taizé meeting’s location saying that “dialogue, unity, ecumenism, and multi-culturalism are part of the city’s historical DNA.”
He described Łódź as a city of young people, with one in every seven of its inhabitants being a student. “For them, finding a place in a large community of believers from around Europe will surely be a highly important experience”, the Cardinal said.
The European Youth Meetings are a time of prayer and sharing in a spirit of celebration and friendship.
The programme also includes workshops on topics such as faith and spirituality, solidarity, ecology, justice, peace, art and culture. An important part of the event are contacts with local families which welcome young people into their homes.
(mk/tf)