The city of Sibiu in central Romania, which has been designated a European Capital of Culture for 2007, has become Europe's "ecumenical capital" this week as Christians from across the continent meet for the Third European Ecumenical Assembly (EEA3).

The Conference of European Churches has organised the 4-9 September meeting with the Council of European (Roman Catholic) Bishops' Conferences (CCEE), bringing together thousands of Christians from Europe's main Churches. The two church bodies combined account for almost all of Europe's Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox Churches.

Archdeacon Colin Williams, General Secretary of the Conference of European Churches, said he hoped the meeting would "give impetus to the search for greater unity between the churches of Europe".

"CEC and CCEE are determined that all that we do together in Sibiu will enable the voice of the church to be heard more clearly in relation to the issues which affect our continent today - migration, justice, peace, environmental issues, relationship between faiths," said Williams.

More than 2000 delegates are expected to gather in Sibiu for EEA3, which follows previous assemblies in Basel, Switzerland, in 1989, and Graz, Austria, in 1997. It is the first such gathering in a predominantly Orthodox and former communist country. The theme of the meeting is "The light of Christ shines upon all. Hope for renewal and unity in Europe".

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I, seen by many of the world's Orthodox Christians as their spiritual leader, preached at the opening service. Other keynote speakers include Metropolitan Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Dean Margarethe Isberg of the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, who heads the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top official for Christian unity, and Metropolitan Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev Samuel Kobia, are also scheduled to speak.

The Sibiu meeting comes at a sensitive time in the quest for Christian unity after a recent Vatican document dismayed many Protestant leaders by stating that their denominations are not churches "in the proper sense".

"If the Vatican says the churches of the Reformation are not churches in the proper sense, then it is setting up an ecumenical roadblock," German Protestant Bishop Huber said in a speech at the end of August.

The meeting also comes as the Romanian Orthodox Church seeks to elect a new leader after the death of Patriarch Teoctist at the end of July. He became Patriarch in 1986 during the era of Romania's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Teoctist stood down following the country's December 1989 revolution but was reinstated as head of the church after four months.


[Source: ENI]