Vatican City, 15 June 2015 (VIS) – This morning Pope Francis received in audience the representatives of the Czech Hussite Church and the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, in Rome to celebrate a liturgy of reconciliation on the occasion of the 600 th anniversary of the reformer Jan Hus, distinguished preacher and rector of the University of Prague, whose execution was lamented by St. John Paul II in 1999, who included him among the reformers of the Church. Continue reading “Francis commemorates the reformer Jan Hus on the 600th anniversary of his death”
Tag: Ecumenical news
Beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero hailed by ecumenical leaders
World Council of Churches, 28 May 2015
Leaders of churches and ecumenical organizations have expressed respect and appreciation following the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero on Sunday 24 May. In the Roman Catholic Church, beatification is a significant step in the process leading to canonization as a saint. Romero was murdered while presiding at Mass in San Salvador on 24 March 1980. He had been archbishop of the capital of El Salvador for three years.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, Roman Catholic prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, has been widely quoted as saying, “Romero, from heaven, wants every Salvadoran to walk the path of peace and justice.”
Continue reading “Beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero hailed by ecumenical leaders”
Mennonite Daniel Hostetler becomes executive director of Parliament of the World’s Religions
4.14. 2015 Written By: Parliament of the World’s Religions
Daniel Hostetler, a member of Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg, Ill., is the new executive director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He begins this role on April 20.
He is the first Anabaptist to hold this position and will be based in Chicago, Ill.
Since their first worldwide gathering, or “Parliament,” in the year 1893, the Parliament of the World’s Religions has sought to bring followers together in peace so that knowledge and acceptance of attendee’s diverse religious and cultural beliefs could reduce the ignorance and confusion that creates conflict.
See the full news story at The Mennonite and an introductory biography on the Parliament Blog.
Praying with Jesus for unity
1.30. 2015 Written By: Alan Kreider and Eleanor Kreider
The difference praying for unity can make in our lives and congregations
Silence, prayer, work, worship. Mennonites living like this? We tried it. Thirty years ago we were guests for 11 weeks of the Community of Grandchamp near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, whose sisters live by the Taizé rule of life as a part of the Swiss Reformed Church.
The sisters’ noon prayer, centered on the Beatitudes, always concluded with Jesus’ own prayer for his followers: “May they all be one” (John 17.21). They want Jesus’ prayer to shape their day and change their world—that there may be unity among Christians.
We were astonished by this daily repetition. After all, we were Mennonites. We thought, Weren’t we the ones committed to do what Jesus taught and did? Unlike other Christians who paid too little attention to the Sermon on the Mount, who fought their enemies and swore oaths, we Mennonites were faithful to Jesus. Yet the Grandchamp sisters also listened to Jesus. Further, they prayed with him, using his very words, that his followers may all be one, as the Father and the Son are one …
To read the full article by Bridgefolk participants Alan and Eleanor Kreider, visit The Mennonite.
Liturgical Press and Augsburg Fortress co-publish extraordinary new resource to celebrate Christian unity
MINNEAPOLIS AND COLLEGEVILLE, MINNESOTA (January 2015)—Liturgical Press, the Roman Catholic publishing house of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis, the publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), are pleased to announce the co-publication of One Hope: Re-Membering the Body of Christ, a resource to help Catholic and Lutheran communities walk together, recognizing and nourishing unity at a grassroots level.
In August 2014, six gifted pastoral leaders and scholars—three Lutheran and three Catholic—gathered for six days at a retreat center in the central Minnesota farmlands. Through intense prayer, discussion, debate, laughter, and work, they created a resource to help Catholics, Lutherans, and all Christians prepare for and mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. The result is One Hope: Re-Membering the Body of Christ.
The essays in One Hope explore experiences and activities that Catholics and Lutherans share and that connect to the living of their faith in embodied ways: breathing, eating, singing, forgiving, serving, and dying. One Hope will serve as a welcome resource for adult faith formation and parish discussion groups made up of Catholics, Lutherans, or members of other denominations.
The Ecumenical Review marks 50th anniversary of Second Vatican Council
22 January 2015 – World Council of Churches Press Centre
The current issue of The Ecumenical Review, a quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC), takes as its theme “Vatican II in Retrospect.” Celebrating a half-century of dialogue emanating from the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, central topics and operating methods of the council’s sessions are recalled by Martin E. Marty of the University of Chicago, John Gibaut of the WCC commission on Faith and Order, and Oxford-based researcher Donald W. Norwood.
Additional features in The Ecumenical Review suggest further steps toward unity. In an appeal for continued inter-confessional commitment, Ernst M. Conradie advances an overture toward development of a truly ecumenical theology of creation. Member associations of the German East Asia Mission offer an open letter to Christians in Japan and South Korea, “Together on the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace,” arising from the Just Peace in East Asia conference at Wittenberg, Germany in the autumn of 2014.
The “ecumenical chronicle” section of the journal reproduces a study document on inter-religious dialogue and cooperation that was accepted by the WCC central committee in July 2014: “Who Do We Say That We Are? Christian Identity in a Multi-religious World.” Following a series of consultations exploring Christian self-identity in relation to interactions with a series of other world religions, this major text “seeks to draw together the reflections and work of the last decade.”
For additional resources, visit the World Council of Churches.
Reform, Revival or Reversal: The Reformation 500 Years On
From Toronto School of Theology.
With the 500th anniversary of the Reformation at hand in 2017, the question of how to commemorate it is upon us.
Do we celebrate the Reformers’ renewal of the church in light of the gospel? Do we mourn the division of the one, catholic church? Or have events like the globalization of Christianity and the rise of Pentecostalism made the 16th-century debates irrelevant?
Join us as Professor Ephraim Radner and a panel of theologians representing a variety of Christian traditions wrestle through these important questions and more.
Lecture
Dr. Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology, Wycliffe College. Toronto
Respondents:
Dr. Gill Goulding, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Director, Advanced Degree Programs, Regis College, Toronto
Rev Michael Stahl, head of communications for the Evangelical Church of North Germany, Hamburg
Dr. John Vissers, Director of Academic Programs and Professor of Historical Theology, Knox College. Toronto
Dr. John Rempel, Director of Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre and previous Professor of Historical Theology and Anabaptist Studies at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Indiana
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Sheraton Hall, Wycliffe College (5 Hoskin Avenue, Toronto)
Reception to follow.
Please let us know you are coming by emailing us at events@wycliffe.utoronto.ca.
Vatican and Lutheran World Federation to prepare common liturgies for 2017 commemoration of Protestant reformation
Mennonite – Lutheran reconciliation service in 2010 provided inspiration
(LWI) – Rev. Martin Junge, General Secretary of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) says relations between the Lutheran and Catholic churches have reached an epoch-making turning-point.
Speaking during a panel discussion, held 18 December, in the Lutheran church in Rome, Junge emphasized that the relationship between Lutherans and Catholics was being transformed “from conflict to communion.” Precisely in a world “in which religion and faith are regularly portrayed and perceived as trouble makers,” he said it was a phenomenal testimony that the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches continued to move “towards a profound communion that frees us to serve God and the world.” Continue reading “Vatican and Lutheran World Federation to prepare common liturgies for 2017 commemoration of Protestant reformation”
Ecumenical friendship calls for solidarity with ancient Christian communities in Middle East
Ecumenical friendship is not only about theological dialogue and common causes–it is also about solidarity in suffering, our calling to “bear one another’s burdens” in the body of Christ so that we might “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). The Catholic Near East Welfare Agency (CNEWA) is a Vatican agency that provides humanitarian and pastoral support for the Eastern Catholic churches. CNEWA works in Eastern Europe, Northeast Africa and throughout the Middle East. A key area of CNEWAs work has been supporting seminaries and training catechists in some of the oldest Christian communities that are struggling to survive in challenging conditions.
This year the church marks Advent and Christmas while many thousands of Catholic Christians have been displaced by expanding war in northern Iraq. They are waiting and wondering whether they will ever be able to return home. Their story is told in an article titled “Exodus” in the magazine ONE, published by CNEWA. Here’s a brief sample:
At night, above this landscape of abjection reigns a scattering of glimmering crosses. On the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, celebrated on 14 September, Iraqi Christians erect illuminated crosses on top of their buildings and leave them there for several weeks. The crosses they left behind in Qaraqosh and Bartella have most likely been taken down or destroyed, but crosses seem to have redoubled across the recently overpopulated Christian enclaves of Iraqi Kurdistan.
While the presence of the crosses certainly brings hope to the faithful, the harsh reality grinds on: It has been months since their expulsion and they are still languishing in churches, tents, abandoned basements, unfinished buildings, repurposed schools and social centers.”
For the full story click here