{"id":341958,"date":"2013-05-22T04:50:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T02:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/from-viterbo-to-loppiano-the-progress-of-ecumenical-dialogue\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:09:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:09:20","slug":"from-viterbo-to-loppiano-the-progress-of-ecumenical-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/from-viterbo-to-loppiano-the-progress-of-ecumenical-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"From Viterbo to Loppiano: the progress of ecumenical dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fr. Vasile Bobita and Fr. Gianfrancesco Bagnulo got to know each other while serving as chaplains at the Viterbo prison and bringing solace to the orthodox and catholic prisoners respectively.<\/p>\n

Over the years this contact developed into a strong brotherly relationship, which then involved the members of their respective church communities and led them to collaborate in organising a local event of the \u201cTogether for Europe<\/a>\u201d initiative (May 2012), of which the Focolare Movement is one of the promoters.<\/p>\n

This led to the idea among the two chaplains to visit together the small town of witness at Loppiano (Florence), inviting also Fr. Vasile\u2019s Romanian Orthodox community and two orthodox monks from the San Giovanni Therestis monastery at Bivongi, in the Reggio Calabria province.<\/p>\n

On the 15th<\/sup> May, among the enchanting Tuscan hills, after the presentation of Chiara Lubich<\/a>\u2019s story and that of the small town, a lively dialogue was initiated within this varied group on \u201cevangelization and dialogue\u201d, on the Movement\u2019s spirituality of unity, on the relationships with the Orthodox Church since the 60\u2019s, on Jesus\u2019 Testament: \u201cThat all may be one\u201d (Jn 17,21). This moment facilitated the deepening of mutual understanding and the sharing of hopes, challenges, sufferings and joys, which was also enriched by the presence of a Romanian Orthodox focolarina who lives in the little town.<\/p>\n

Fr. Vasile\u2019s comment was brief and meaningful: \u201cNow I know why I always felt welcome with Fr. Gianfrancesco: it\u2019s because you live the reality of unity\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the end, everyone wanted to participate with the inhabitants of Loppiano in the Holy Mass at the church dedicated to Mary, Mother of God. Fr. Gianfrancesco said that it \u201ctouched us deeply because it is the place of meeting, of relationships concretely lived in the light of the gospel\u201d.<\/p>\n

This visit was of particular significance as it coincided with the 10th<\/sup> anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the Shrine (2003-2013) when, in the presence of Chiara Lubich and religious and civil authorities, representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople donated some small coloured stones, from important Marian orthodox shrines around the world, to be laid together with the foundation stone as a sign of the path of communion that unites us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two chaplains at the Viterbo prison, one Orthodox and the other Catholic, visited the small town of the Focolare Movement along with the Romanian Orthodox community.<\/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-341958","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\/341958","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=341958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}