{"id":327788,"date":"2015-11-28T20:44:06","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T19:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/an-appeal-for-peace-from-the-monastery-of-halki-turkey\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:02:10","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:02:10","slug":"an-appeal-for-peace-from-the-monastery-of-halki-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/an-appeal-for-peace-from-the-monastery-of-halki-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"An Appeal for Peace from the Monastery of Halki, Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20151128MonasteroHalki\"The first part of the<\/strong> Ecumenical Meeting of Bishop Friends of the Focolare<\/a> concluded on November 27th <\/strong>in the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity on Halki Island. Cardinal Francis Kriengsak evidenced how the unity amongst the different Christian Churches is at the service of the whole human family. \u201cThe diversity is a gift and a mutual enrichment,\u201d he said \u201cbut that is possible only by listening without judgement, with the dialogue of life, with the sharing of experiences, with an acceptance that brings the different charisms into harmony.\u201d The challenges and particularities of every church concerning pressing issues are contained in this mutual understanding. \"20151128JesusMoran\"In the morning, Focolare co-president, <\/em>Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n<\/a>, identified several challenges of today\u2019s world, including: globalisation, ultra-modernity, the advent of a piecemeal third world war; and he presented the answers that a culture of unity can give. Quoting from Bishop Klaus Hemmerle<\/a>, who was a pioneer of the Meeting, he showed the necessity of a listening attitude in today\u2019s world, \u201cTeach me your thought,\u201d Hemmerle would say, \u201cso that I can learn my own proclamation again,\u201d only in this way, claimed Mor\u00e1n, would it be possible to achieve an \u201cinexcusable operation of purification from the religious incrustations\u201d present in our churches. It is these that divide us; the world no longer allows us not only to be disunited, but not even to proclaim the message of Christ as we have up until now. After all, the first Christians did not proclaim a new religion, but a full life, the life they had found in Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em> In the dialogue<\/strong> that followed it was clear how deeply those words entered, and there was a strong desire to smooth the way for full and visible communion. Even though the world scene seems to point to the opposite, the co-president invited everyone to hope: \u201cThe world as it is today leads me to be more Christian because of this identification with Jesus crucified who permits me to live the deepest Trinitarian communion with my brothers and sisters.\u201d The bishops learned the history of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity <\/strong>during their short visit. From 1844 it was a seminary for the formation of Greek Orthodox clergy until 1971 when the Turkey Constitutional Court decided that all private institutes of high education be included in the offer of free public education. The Seminary Council was opposed and the famous school of theology where theologians from around the world studied was closed. In 127 years of activity, 950 students graduated from this school; 330 became bishops; 12 were chosen to be Ecumenical Patriarchs; 2 were elected Patriarchs of Alessandria and 3 from Antioch were ordained priests. The current Abbot of the monastery, Metropolitan Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, <\/strong>gave a presentation titled: \u201cThe love of mercy and communion amongst Christians,\u201d an interesting historical reading of the path of dialogue between the Church of the East and the West with a particular mentioning of the role played by Chiara Lubich,<\/a> foundress of the Focolare<\/a>, in the rapprochement of the two Churches. \"20151128TurchiaVescovi\"At the conclusion of the first part of the Meeting, the bishops embraced the appeal of Patriarch Bartholomew I<\/a>, to pray that the School of Theology might be reopened. They also called for the return of the two bishops in Syria, who were kidnapped <\/a>in April 2013: Greek Orthodox Bishop of Aleppo, Paul Yazigi, and Syro-Orthodox Archbishop Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, Bishop Friend of the Focolare and faithful participant at all their gatherings. Now the evening has come and rain is falling lightly on the island. The carts are rolling down the hills carrying a much lighter cargo: brother bishops who are committed to living mutual love so that the Risen Jesus can give his light to the world again. Compiled by:<\/em> Adriana Avellaneda<\/em>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishops from different Churches meeting on Heybelidad Island, Turkey, call for peace in the Middle East and pray for the reopening of the School of Theology on the island.<\/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-327788","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\/327788","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=327788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}