{"id":328698,"date":"2016-11-04T04:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T03:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/500-years-of-the-lutheran-reformation-commemorated-in-sweden\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:05:34","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:05:34","slug":"500-years-of-the-lutheran-reformation-commemorated-in-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/500-years-of-the-lutheran-reformation-commemorated-in-sweden\/","title":{"rendered":"500 Years of the Lutheran Reformation Commemorated in Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20161105-01\"It might have been the presence of Pope Francis and of the highest representatives of the World Lutheran Federation. <\/strong>It might have been the moving words of the Joint Declaration<\/a> being read in the Cathedral of Lund. Or it might have been the large turnout by the people. The fact is that the success of the 500th<\/sup> Anniversary of the Lutheran Reform went beyond every expectation. \u201cChrist wants us to be one so that the world may believe,\u201d Lutherans and Catholics proclaimed, convinced that \u201ctheir way of relating with one another does have an effect on their witness to the Gospel.\u201d The Declaration looks to the future and to daily life: moving beyond ourselves, our communities, our churches, to take action together \u201cin service, in defence of human dignity and human rights, especially of the poor, working for justice and rejecting all forms of violence.\u201d They agreed to work together \u201cin welcoming the stranger and helping all those who have had to flee from war and persecution, to defend the rights of refugees and those seeking asylum.\u201d They agreed to work together for the protection of Creation \u201cthat suffers from exploitation and the effects of insatiable greed.\u201d The Declaration became global in its final appeal to Catholics and Lutherans of the whole world that \u201cin every parish and Lutheran and Catholic community\u201d they might be \u201ccourageous and creative,\u201d completely forgetting conflicts of the past so that \u201cthe unity among us might guide our collaboration and deepen our solidarity.\u201d The Lutheran Reform in Sweden <\/strong>was introduced for simply political reasons. King Gustav Vasa took control of the Church, and it was only in the year 2000 that the separation between Church and State took place. Over the course of the centuries Lutheranism acquired many characteristics that were then had a reflection on nations. But beyond the history of individual nations,<\/strong> today are witnessing the \u201cUnity Reform\u201d that is overwhelmingly desired by both the Catholic and Lutheran Church. This reform is also destined to become part of popular culture. It is founded on 5 commitments<\/strong>: 1) to begin from the perspective of our unity, not from the perspective of divisions; 2) to allow ourselves to be continually transformed by the encounter with the other; 3) to take concrete steps in seeking full visible unity; 4) to rediscover the power of the Gospel; 5) to offer a common witness to God\u2019s mercy. Such commitments enable us to bear witness to the beauty of being Christians in diversity, because of the fact that what unites us is much more than what divides us. This has always been the guiding belief behind the long friendship between the Focolare and the Lutherans<\/a>. Antje Jackelen, the first woman archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden was interviewed by us regarding the contribution of the movements. She said that \u201cthey are ecumenical in their very design, so that with them any prejudices have already been beaten.\u201d She also said that this week\u2019s event \u201cis also the result of 50 years of dialoguing and working together.\u201d That afternoon at Malm\u00f6 Arena<\/strong> in front of a crowd of 10.000 people, Pranita from India, Hector Fabio from Colombia, Marguerite from Burundi, Rose from South Sudan and Antoine from Syria shared their testimonies. They were able to demonstrate more than a thousand speeches the collaboration among the Churches through common efforts for the protection of Creation, social justice, children, the poor, farm workers and the victim of war. The Pope concluded: \u201cThese stories inspire us and give new motivation to our desire to be always more united. When we return home let\u2019s take with us the commitment to do one act of peace and reconciliation each day, in order to be courageous and faithful witnesses of Christian hope.\u201d JOINT STATEMENT<\/a>\u00a0on the occasion of the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration of the Reformation<\/a>\u00a0 ( From Vatican radio)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On October 31, Lutherans and Catholics agree on the need for unity that can be built through 5 common commitments. Working together for the suffering and for the protection of Creation.<\/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-328698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328698","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=328698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}