The pope reached the pilgrimage site on Saturday after something of a pilgrimage of his own. Bad weather forced his plane to be rerouted to Targu Mures, from where he drove for more than two hours across the Carpathian Mountains on winding roads.

A major goal of Francis’ three-day trip here is to help mend an open wound between the two churches that ultimately goes back to centuries-old theological and political clashes. Improving relations with the Orthodox, as well as the Muslim, world — where so many Christians live in peril — has been a hallmark of Francis’ papacy and a driver of much of his recent travel, from Egypt to Morocco, Bulgaria and Romania, where in his three-day trip he has warned of the dangers of populism.

But for all Francis’ free movement and speech around Romania, tensions still linger between Romania’s majority Orthodox Church and its Catholic communities, which represent about 5 percent of the country’s population. The Great Schism, caused by differences in liturgy and theology, eventually led to a split and mutual excommunications between the western church, loyal to the pope, and the eastern church, loyal to a patriarch. After centuries of division, and then decades of Communist rule that imprisoned, killed and otherwise persecuted Catholics, hard feelings remain.

“They are still a few people who are afraid of the pope’s visit, who try to manipulate,” said the Rev. Francisc Dobos, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest. “Generally, there is a good relationship, but I’d like to have a much more closer relationship.”