{"id":327776,"date":"2015-11-26T14:01:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T13:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/turkey-a-wind-of-unity-on-heybeli-island-itstanbul\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:02:07","slug":"turkey-a-wind-of-unity-on-heybeli-island-itstanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/turkey-a-wind-of-unity-on-heybeli-island-itstanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey. A Wind of Unity on Heybeli Island, Itstanbul."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"P1250890\"November 25th, 9 am. <\/strong>A light breeze blows over Heybeli Island, Halki, a small oasis of peace in the Marmara Sea near Istanbul. On the top of the island\u2019s Hill of Hope stands the Orthodox Monastery Aya Triada <\/em>(Most Holy Trinity) that is hosting this year\u2019s 34th Meeting of Bishops from different Churches, promoted by the Focolare Movement. Founded in the 9th century, the Monastery was destroyed several times by earthquake and fire. The present construction from the 19th century is the site of a prestigious Greek Orthodox Theological Academy that contains a library with valuable ancient manuscripts and a total of 120,000 books. It was quite an unusual scene at the Monastery\u2019s entrance: <\/strong>35 bishops from 16 Churches and 19 countries in fraternal dialogue. The president and co-president of the Focolare Movement were also among them along with other members of the meeting. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I comes to the door: <\/strong>\u201cI am happy at being together with you,\u201d he says with simplicity and leads them into the Monastery. He would present the opening address of the Meeting: \u201cTogether for the common cause: the unity of the disciples of Christ in the diversity of gifts.\u201d \"P1250951\"Cardinal Francis Kriengsak from Bangkok greets the Patriarch on behalf of all <\/strong>and thanks him for having wished to host this year\u2019s Meeting. \u201cHere we are in the heart of Orthodoxy with its ancient Churches and countless martyrs\u201d he says as he introduces the members of the Meeting. \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> The Anglican Primate, <\/strong>Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby sent a message to the gathering: \u201cI continue to consider the Focolare Movement as one of the beacons of hope in our divided world. With its commitment to unity through mutual respect and dialogue, it offers a characteristic path towards reconciliation beyond differences and enmities.\u201d Bartholomew I <\/strong>recalls his recent visit to Loppiano for the honorary doctorate<\/a> that was conferred upon him by Sophia University Institute. \u201cAn encounter,\u201d he says \u201cin which we experienced sincere love, without any ifs or buts. Then he speaks of the Meeting. \u201cHow can we manage to harmonise the diversity of charisms of our Churches today with the unity of the disciples of Christ and be typos <\/em>(model) of unity for the world?\u201d he asks. \u201cToo many times the differences appear to be foundational elements and not charism <\/strong>and this is what we savour every day in the face of the difficulties which the human race lives out as exclusiveness and conflict\u201d \"P1250991\"<\/strong>On a global landscape where discouragement, uncertainty and indifference prevail, especially in the recent days, The Patriarch looked to hope. <\/strong>As Christians, he emphasised: \u201cwe have to quickly recover the sense of unity as a recapitulation of the gifts [charisms],\u201d the \u201cwealth of the differences. . . to be offered and, in turn, received.\u201d \u201cThe unity of the world, the respect for God\u2019s Creation the gift of his love,\u201d he explained, \u201cwill be given by the ability to welcome the experience of the other as an enrichment for all, as a path of unity, of respect and of reciprocity,\u201d \u201cfree from every type of ideological, political and economic conditioning.\u201d \u201cI arrived here even more happy because I found you waiting for me. . . like a family,\u201d said the Patriarch as he posed a challenge to the bishops and people entrusted to them: if as Christians we will have this experience, \u201cwe will truly be \u2018salt of the earth\u2019 <\/strong>and the world will begin a profound metamorphosis.\u201d Compiled by: Adriana Avellaneda<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Monastery of Halki, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I meets with 35 bishops from 16 Churches who gather for the 34th ecumenical meeting of Bishop Friends of the Focolare. The Movement\u2019s president, Maria Voce, and co-president Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n also attend.<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327776","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=327776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}