MALM: Pope Francis arrived in Sweden on Monday on a historic mission to promote reconciliation and unity between Catholics and Protestants, riven by Christianity`s nearly 500-year-old schism.

`It is an important trip,` the pontiff told journalists on a plane carrying him from Rome to Sweden, a predominantly Lutheran nation hosting commemorations to mark the birth of Protestantism.

After arriving in the southern city of Malmo, Pope Francis was to head to nearby Lund for an ecumenical service marking the start of a year of celebrations for the Reformation the dramatic 1517 event that created a Protestant branch of Christianity which rebelled against papal rule.

The event will also mark 50 years of reconciliatory dialogue between the Catholic Church and Lutheranism a Protestantbranch that has traditionally been among the most fervent opponents to Vatican`s authority and teachings.

Just by agreeing to attend, Pope Francis has made a gesture that would have been unimaginable for all but his most recent predecessors, commentators say.

The popes of the16th century spent huge amounts of time and energy trying to stifle or reverse the reforming wave launched by the German monk Martin Luther when he nailed his demands the `95 theses`to the door of a church in Wittenberg on Oct 31, 1517.

Monday`s meeting comes eight months after Pope Francis became the first pope in almost 1,000 years to meet an Orthodox Patriarch.

The current leader of the world`s 1.2 billion Catholics has also reached out to Anglicans.-AFP