The Ecumenical Day of the Churches, held in Berlin in May this year with the participation of over 200,000 people, will be repeated: in a joint communiqué issued on 9 December, the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and the Evangelic organization for the Ecumenical Day have announced “their intention to organize a second Day in a period between 2008 and 2010”. “Following the overwhelming success of the event in Berlin says the press release the delegations of the executives of the two lay organizations, meeting in Bonn in recent days, decided that the ecumenical days will in future be held at regular intervals”. It is emphasised, however, that “the Katholikentage (biennial assemblies of German Catholics) and the equivalent assemblies of the Evangelic Church will remain necessary in future also for the progress of ecumenism”: the next Katholikentag will be held in Ulm between 16 and 20 June 2004, while that of the Evangelic Church is scheduled for 25/29 May 2004. With a view to planning the next ecumenical event, the two organizations expressed the need for “further clarifications of conceptual and organizational type” and fixed for the spring of 2004 the continuation of their joint consultations, held in an atmosphere of mutual openness and growing trust”.
