The annual meeting of the Joint Committee of the Conference of European Churches (KEK) and of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE) is due to take place at the end of the Prayer Week for Christian Unity, which it has helped to sponsor. The meeting is due to open at Ottmaring, near Augsburg in Germany, on 24 January. “In these nine months since the signing of the ‘Charta Oecumenica. Guidelines for the growth of collaboration between the Churches in Europe’ by the presidents of the CCEE and KEK at Strasbourg on 22 April 2001 declares a joint communiqué issued by the two organizations the secretariats of CCEE and KEK have continued to receive testimonials to the fact that this charter is spreading a wave of dialogue, meetings, concrete actions and projects throughout Europe”. The joint Committee will therefore be called to draw up a preliminary balance sheet of this new phase in the process and establish the next steps: a consultation in 2003, a book of testimonials on the history of the Charta Oecumenica, and the possibility of convening a third European ecumenical assembly, after Basel (1989) and Graz (1997). Also on the agenda will be a report on the activities of the Islam in Europe Committee and a debate on possible developments after the Christian-Islamic meeting held in Sarajevo from 12 to 16 September 2001. The tragedy of 11 September declares the joint CCEE/KEK communiqué “has shown in a new way the grave responsibility of Christians and the urgent need for reconciliation and the restoration of visible unity between the Churches: the division between Christians hampers the diffusion of a life lived in accordance with the Gospel that is capable of establishing universal brotherhood, as the true alternative to violence, injustice and terrorism”. At Ottmaring discussion will also be devoted to the various initiatives of the Churches in promoting the process of European unification, their contribution to peace in south-east Europe and their activities for the safeguard of the creation.
