{"id":327370,"date":"2015-06-17T04:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T02:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/egypt-feasting-amongst-christians\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:00:43","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:00:43","slug":"egypt-feasting-amongst-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/egypt-feasting-amongst-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt. Feasting Amongst Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20150614-01\"After the historic meeting between Francis and Tawadros II<\/strong> (Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church and Patriarch of Alexandria), which place on May 10, 2013<\/strong> at the Vatican, for the first time a day of celebration was held in Alexandria between the two Churches in commemoration of that meeting. Three months after the election of Francis, Tawadros II went to visit him on the day of the 40th anniversary of the historic visit of Pope Shenouda III to Paul VI. On that occasion, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch had proposed that May 10th be celebrated each year as the Day of Friendship between the two Churches.<\/a> The event was celebrated on June 7, 2015<\/strong> at the Jesuit Cultural Centre in Alexandria, Egypt, under the patronage of the Coptic Catholic Patriarch, Ibrahim Ishak, in the presence of Tawadros II, who was joined by 8 Coptic Orthodox bishops and 5 priests. Also present, Papal Nuncio, Bruno Musar\u00f2, Latin Bishop, Adel Zaki, and around 100 Religious men and women, and Catholic priests. Promoters of the event included Sohphia University Institute (SUI); the current Director of the Cultural Centre and ex-student of SUI and friend from the Orthodox Church. Following a moment of prayer with readings and songs, a documentary film was presented that recalled the various stages of the historic meeting between the two Churches. In his message<\/a>, Pope Francis reminded everyone that \u201cwhat we have in common is much greater than what divides us\u201d and that \u201cwe can persevere in our march towards full communion, and grow in love and understanding.The Coptic Patriarch immediately responded. That afternoon he telephoned Pope Francis, confirming his \u201cwill to continue in the common effort for the unity of Christians,\u201d as Vatican spokesman Father Lombardi reported. In his speech, which was filled with affection for the Bishop of Rome, Tawadros II expressed his conviction that \u201ctoday\u2019s world is hungry and thirsty for concrete love. The unity between the Churches is in need of heroes of the faith,\u201d and he indicated some necessary preconditions for reaching unity, such as openmindedness, and praying each day: \u201cGive me an open mind, oh God, like the mind of Our Lord Jesus towards the Samaritan woman, and towards the Good Thief on His right.\u201d But also a big heart, capable of going \u201cbeyond the letter.\u201d And, finally, a humble soul that \u201csafeguards the gifts and grace that God bestows.\u201d His Holiness was moved as he described the touching humility of Pope Francis, when he met him and said to him again: \u201cThis day we have to celebrate every year!\u201d Tawadros II personally greeted each of the guests. The joyful event ended by remembering the \u201cecumenism of blood\u201d and the Egyptian and Ethiopian Martyrs in Lybia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 7th, Alexandria, Egypt, second anniversary of the Day of Friendship between the Coptic Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church inaugurated at the first meeting between Pope Francis and Tawadros II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}