The Pope’s upcoming visit to the Cologne synagogue next week has been welcomed by the local community as an opportunity to show mutual respect.

Benedict XVI will arrive at the house of worship, located in the centre of the German city, at 12 pm on Friday, 19 August.

He will be greeted by Natanael Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Cologne and the synagogue board. Some 600 persons are to attend the one-hour event, which will be broadcast live by the German television.

Local officials, cardinals, political leaders, including German Interior Minister Otto Schilly, 300 members of the local Jewish community and 40 rabbis from across the country will all be in attendance.

Representing the Jews

“We’re here not just as the Cologne community, but as the Jewish people," Teitelbaum said. He noted that although there will be speeches and some liturgical texts with little time for conversation, the two sides will be able to demonstrate mutual respect.

Cologne Synagogue

"We can all learn from each other, not necessarily about religious issues, but about other issues, like how to live together, or the moral issues which we must all hold to, or the issue of peace. We have to work together, not just with speeches, but actions," the chief rabbi added.

Shortly after Pope Benedict was elected last April, the Cologne Jewish community sent a message of congratulations and said its members would be happy to greet him when he visited the city for World Youth Day.

Significant visit

Hans Hermann Henrix, director of the Catholic Academy in Aachen and consultant to the German bishops and the Vatican on Catholic-Jewish issues, said he sees a certain significance in the fact that a German pontiff will visit the synagogue.

"It’s an expression of the significance of Jewish existence in German history, and this is especially meaningful after the horrible experience that we have had in the last century," he told the Catholic News Service.

"The fact that the German Pope Benedict will visit the synagogue of Cologne has its own force, but the path was already trodden by John Paul II, and this pope will confirm that commitment from his own perspective and with his own personality."

The Cologne community is the oldest recorded Jewish community north of the Alps. It has been home to Jews since Roman times. Today, around 5,000 Jews live in the city, mostly Russian immigrants.

Built in the 1899, Cologne’s synagogue was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt on the same place in 1959.