{"id":327766,"date":"2015-11-24T05:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T04:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/bishops-of-different-churches-gather-in-istanbul\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:02:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:02:06","slug":"bishops-of-different-churches-gather-in-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/bishops-of-different-churches-gather-in-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"Bishops of different Churches gather in Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20151124-02\"The 34th Conference of Bishops of different Churches,<\/strong> promoted by the Focolare Movement, will start on 25 November 2015. It will be held on the island of Heybeliada (Halki)<\/strong>, in the sea of Marmara, near Istanbul. The 150 participants, from 9 different countries, will be hosted in the Monastery on this island, which was once the seat of the prestigious Greek-Orthodox theological Academy of Halki. The 50 participants, from 19 countries,<\/strong> are much awaited by His Holiness Bartholomew I, who during a recent interview, in the wake of the Honoris Causa<\/em> doctorate in the Culture of Unity<\/a> conferred upon him by the Sophia University Institute, affirmed that: \u201cAt Halki we will together remember Chiara Lubich<\/a> and pray for the repose of her soul. We will be able to express our commitment to work for the unity of Churches. We, the Church of Constantinople are pleased to welcome these cardinals and bishops, and we are ready to exchange our experiences and give one another the kiss of peace between the East and the West\u201d.<\/em> \u201c<\/em>Together for our common home\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>will be the theme of this conference, which will focus on unity, as a service to the human family, through a diversity of gifts. The main speakers will be Patriarch Bartholomew I and Maria Voce<\/a>, while Cardinal Francis Kriengsak, Archbishop of Bangkok<\/strong> will be the moderator of the conference. Various bishops from different Churches will share their reflections; among them, the Anglican Bishop Robin Smith; \u00c5ke Bonnier, Lutheran Bishop of the Swedish Church; the Catholic Bishop Brendan Leahy, Bishop Sahak Mashalyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Metropolitan Elpidophoros of Halki. Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n<\/a>, the co-president of the Focolare Movement will offer his reflection on \u201cThe Charism of Unity<\/a> and the challenges of today\u2019s humanity\u201d. Gerhard Pross, an Evangelical from YMCA, Germany will speak about \u201cAchievements and experiences on the road to unity\u201d in the name of \u201cTogether for Europe<\/a>\u201d, the ecumenical network of movements and communities. Cardinal Kurt Koch,<\/strong> who will lead a Holy See delegation to Istanbul for St. Andrew\u2019s feast, will also speak during the Conference. His talk will be about \u201cPope Francis and the cause of Christian Unity\u201d. In a church of Armenian Apostolic tradition of ancient Chalcedon, the seat of the Chalcedonian Ecumenical Council of 451, the bishops will once again formulate a pact of reciprocal love, thus renewing the mutual relationship of charity that goes beyond all divisions and answers Jesus\u2019s invitation: \u201cLove one another as I have loved you\u201d (Jn 15:12). In this particular context, this invitation implies the reciprocal promise \u201cto love the Church of the other as one\u2019s own\u201d. The bishops are invited by Patriarch Bartholomew to participate in the celebrations at the Phanar on the 29 and 30 November<\/strong> on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew,<\/strong> Patron of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. These meetings for bishops of different Churches, promoted by the Focolare Movement, are held annually. These meetings have been taking place since 1982<\/strong>, and they owe their beginning to a suggestion made by Pope John Paul II to a group of Catholic bishops, friends of the Focolare Movement, when he invited them to share their experience of “effective and affective\u201d communion even with bishops of other churches. Promoted by Klaus Hemmerle, who was then bishop of Aaachen, Germany, and after his death by Miloslav Vlk, Cardinal of Prague, these meetings aim at offering vital spaces of communion and fraternal sharing in the light of the spirituality of unity. The venue for these meetings changes; they are held in places that are meaningful to the various Christian denominations. In 2016 the meeting will be held in Ottmaring (Augsburg \u2013 <\/strong>Germany<\/a>).<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 34th Ecumenical Conference of Bishops, friends of the Focolare Movement, is being held in Istanbul from 25 to 30 November 2015. The group is much awaited by His Holiness Bartholomew I.<\/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-327766","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\/327766","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=327766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}