Από 31 Αυγούστου έως και 8 Σεπτεμβρίου 2022 πραγματοποιείται στην Καρλσρούη της Γερμανίας η 11η Συνέλευση του Παγκοσμίου Συμβουλίου Εκκλησιών, με θέμα «Η αγάπη του Χριστού κινεί τον κόσμο προς τη συμφιλίωση και την ενότητα». Πρόκειται για την πρώτη Σύνοδο του ΠΣΕ μετά την Αγία και Μεγάλη Σύνοδο της Ορθοδοξίας στην Κρήτη.
Η 10η Γενική Συνέλευση του Παγκοσμίου Συμβουλίου Εκκλησιών πραγματοποιήθηκε στο Πουσάν της Νότιας Κορέας το 2013.
Επικεφαλής της Αντιπροσωπείας του Οικουμενικού Πατριαρχείου στην 11η Συνέλευση του ΠΣΕ είναι ο Σεβ. Μητροπολίτης Γέρων Χαλκηδόνος κ. Εμμανουήλ.
Στο Δελτίο ΕΝΗΜΕΡΩΣΙΣ της Αντιπροσωπείας του Οικουμενικού Πατριαρχείου στο ΠΣΕ (Ιούλιος – Αύγουστος 2022), δημοσιεύεται ένα ενδιαφέρον άρθρο του θεολόγου Γιώργου Βλαντή, Διευθυντού του Συμβουλίου των Χριστιανικών Εκκλησιών της Βαυαρίας και μέλους της Αντιπροσωπείας του Οικουμενικού Πατριαρχείου στην 11η Συνέλευση του ΠΣΕ.
Το παραθέτουμε στη συνέχεια.
HUMBLENESS, PROPHECY AND ECUMENISM
THOUGHTS ON THE WAY TO KARLSRUHE
By Georgios Vlantis
“Christ’s Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity”: My first reaction to the theme of the 11th WCC Assembly (Karlsruhe, 31 August – 8 September 2022), long before the war in Ukraine, did not mirror enthusiasm. I regarded this sentence as nothing more than one of the platitudes so abundant in the ecumenical jargon. People less privileged than me (I live in Western Europe) may not find the theme only boring but even embarrassing: Soldiers in the agony of the battlefield, children suffering from famine, sexually abused persons do not experience fruits of love, reconciliation and unity. I suppose that many of them even ask: Is Christ present in this world at all, a world that does not seem to move to reconciliation and unity, but to deeper crisis and further destruction?
It is perhaps the way one reads the theme out that makes the difference: Not in the (so badly European and awfully colonial) narcissistic tone of somebody claiming to know God and to dispose all the answers, but in the liberating and at the same time prophetic humbleness of one who fervently seeks to get known of God (cf. Galatians 4:9) and therefore appears in front of Him wounded and full of questions, but also full of hope: We, as human beings, even as Christians, cannot move the world to reconciliation and unity. Lord, we need your love and its moving power. We believe. Help us overcome our unbelief (cf. Marc 9:24). In Orthodoxy we call this attitude apophaticism.
The world has not yet recovered from the pandemic. The war in Ukraine has awakened the ghost of nuclear destruction. The overheating during this summer seems to make Europe realize the seriousness of the climate crisis. In this very moment, in these bad times, it is good, it is a blessing that we will experience an assembly; we urgently need this great gathering of Christians from all over the world in order to see each other again in three dimensions, to discuss together about our pathologies and concerns, but also to draft creatively our common future, to pray together and give thanks to God, to the solid fundament of our lives. It is up to us to use the momentum: Will the ecumenical movement see in this crisis a kairos or will the upcoming assembly just continue handling daily business – as usual? Will it reveal its prophetic strength or will it rather rely on its diplomatic capacities? Will it prefer the way of self-affirmation in a rapidly secularized world, hoping to encourage the remaining Christians of Europe, or will it dare painful self-critical reflection – risking frustration or finally achieving a needed catharsis?
It is not easy to be a Christian nowadays; it never was. The WCC assembly is coming to Europe after 54 years (the last time it was in Uppsala 1968). Dechristianization is apparent everywhere in the continent. The concern is neither strictly confessional nor only European. As a global challenge, it occupies the whole ecumenical fellowship. But the intensity and all the special features of the European context may enable the assembly to draft new opportunities. Are the European Christians ready to abandon a way of thinking in terms of power, to appear naked, to honestly share their concerns and fears? Are they ready to listen to other brothers and sisters and to receive their impulses? But are they also willing to overcome the easiness of a pathetic frustration and to rediscover the various gifts of their own traditions? The assembly offers a platform for an encouraging unfolding of the colorful diversity of the continent’s Christian past and present.
It is not easy to be an Orthodox nowadays; it never was, not only because of the strict doctrines, or the demanding ascetic prescriptions of the Eastern Church. On the way to the 11th WCC assembly, inter-orthodox conflicts remain very serious. Church politics cannot interpret adequately the nature of the problem, which is a very theological one: the glorification of various forms of nationalism, whose (anti)ecumenical implications are evident. Great parts of the Orthodox world are contaminated by this poison, often strengthened by aggressive anti-western narratives to the extent of betrayal of the Gospel. Orthodoxy can contribute decisively to the assembly only by profound and prophetic self-criticism and by honest criticism of ecumenical structures that enabled unjust treatment of Christian people. One example: No Church from Ukraine belongs yet to the members of the WCC. Why?
It is not easy to be an ecumenist nowadays; it never was. Various forms of fundamentalism challenge all those working for the reestablishment and the deepening of Christian unity. In general, radical movements invest upon uncertainty in order to establish their agendas of fear and discrimination. The simplicity of love opposes the simplicism of hatred. But it is up to the powers seeking for inclusion and reconciliation to convince that they offer a promising alternative to those building new borders.
“Christ’s Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity”: No, the theme is not boring, if we apophatically read it as a prayer and as an ecumenical task. The prophets, the ascetics, appear always wounded. They are fearless because they are wounded. They know that pain will not have the last word, that is Christ’s word, a word of true love, profound reconciliation and solid unity. Saint Maximos the Confessor with his vision of a “cosmic liturgy”, would be happy with the perspectives summarized in the theme of the assembly: Christ, the dynamics of His love, cosmos, reconciliation, unity, even eschatology. The theme is deeply orthodox: Let us show our wounds in Karlsruhe, in order to be prophetic, in order to adequately serve the Word, in order to offer to the world the Christian perspective of the cosmos (=[in ancient Greek] both world and jewel).
— Georgios Vlantis, M.Th., is director of the Council of Christian Churches in Bavaria, Germany and research associate of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Greece.
