Eastern Europe" "
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan e Uzbekistan: 14 delegations of the countries of the former Soviet Union, together with their respective Pastors, will participate in the first Congress of the Catholic Laity of Eastern Europe, due to be held in Kiev, in the Ukraine, from 8 to 12 October. The Congress is being promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Apart from the national delegations of the laity, the participants will also include members of associations and ecclesial movements that operate in this geographical area, representatives of Catholic organizations that collaborate with the Churches of Eastern Europe, and some members and consultors of the Pontifical Council itself. Some guest observers of other Churches and ecclesial communities have also been invited, in liaison with the Pontifical Council for the promotion of Christian Unity. The primary objective of the Congress of Kiev is to stimulate the laity to rediscover their own identity by encouraging them to do so through the study and assimilation of the magisterium of the Church and especially the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the christifideles laici. In this context, particular emphasis will be placed on the indispensable participation of the lay faithful in the life of the parish communities, on the importance of lay associations and movements for the mission of the Church, and on the criteria for the laity to assume their rightful role as protagonists in the life of the Church and in the world. The legacy of decades of atheist propaganda in the countries of Eastern Europe confronts the Church today with an educational and formative task of huge proportions. The challenges that the Churches of Eastern Europe have to tackle in the field of religious life are no less daunting that those posed by the creation and consolidation of democratic structures in socio-political life and by the introduction of a market economy. The Congress will be opened on the afternoon of Wednesday, 8 October by an introductory address given by Cardinal James Francis Stafford, and welcoming speeches by Cardinals Lubomyr Husar, Archbishop Major of Lvov of the Ukrainians, and Marian Jaworski, Archbishop of Lvov of the Latins. A particularly significant moment in the programme will be the liturgical Memory of the Martyrs, presided over by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar on the evening of Saturday 11 October. On Sunday 12 October, after the solemn eucharistic celebration that will close the Congress, all the delegates will be presented with a copy of John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici, indispensable point of reference for the Catholic laity.
