Pope Francis will visit Sweden this autumn to take part in an ecumenical service marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Leaders from the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation had already been planning to meet on October 31 for the ecumenical celebration in Lund, where the LWF was founded in 1947. The Vatican press office said on Monday that the Pope “intends to participate” in the joint ceremony marking the anniversary. The announcement came on the feast of the conversion of St Paul – “an important day with regard to ecumenism”, said Fr Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman. It was the last day of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Pope Francis will lead the service in Lund alongside Bishop Munib Younan, president of the LWF, and the Rev Martin Junge, the LWF’s general secretary, according to a joint statement by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the LWF. The event will include a common worship based on the recently published Catholic-Lutheran Common Prayer liturgical guide” and will highlight ecumenical developments between Catholics and Lutherans over the past 50 years, the press release said. Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said: “By concentrating together on the centrality of the question of God and on a Christocentric approach, Lutherans and Catholics will have the possibility of an ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation, not simply in a pragmatic way, but in the deep sense of faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ.” Dr Junge said the federation was “approaching the Reformation anniversary in a spirit of ecumenical accountability. “By working towards reconciliation between Lutherans and Catholics, we are working towards justice, peace and reconciliation in a world torn apart by conflict and violence,” he added. Common Prayer, released this month, is the first jointly developed liturgical text prepared by a task force drawn from the official Lutheran-Catholic Commission on Unity.