Ecumenism" "
Over 10,000 members of 160 Christian movements and communities (Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox) from all over Europe will meet in Stuttgart on 8th May to celebrate the enlargement of the EU to ten new countries in Eastern and Southern Europe (on 1st May). The event promoted by an organizing committee that comprises, among Catholic representatives, the St. Egidio Community, Focolare Movement, Renewal in the Spirit, etc. was recently showcased in Rome. “It’s a day that derives its origins from the friendship between the leaders of various movements forged during the meeting with the Pope in 1998″ – explains Helmut Nicklas, Lutheran, who also sits on the organizing committee -. It will an occasion for meeting and celebrating together to show the variety of the spiritual riches present in Europe”. On the two days preceding the jamboree, on 6/7 May, a conference will also be held, to provide a forum for discussion between the leaders of the movements. The event of 8 May will be held in the Hanns Martin Schleyer Sports Centre (from 10 am to 5 pm) with satellite link ups and contemporary meetings in 141 European cities, including Florence (Palasport), Rome (Campidoglio) and Paris (Unesco headquarters). It will have a style and format adapted to television, with brief interventions and musical interludes (choirs, dance groups, bands). The speakers will include Chiara Lubich, Andrea Riccardi, the Evangelic pastors Friedrich Aschoff and Ulrich Parzany, the Orthodox Father Heikki Huttunen, the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, Cardinal Walter Kasper and Bishop Johannes Friedrich of the Evangelic-Lutheran Church of Bavaria. The politicians will only listen. Meanwhile new enrolments of groups and movements are continuing to arrive, “to be understood in the broad sense”, explains Paolo Ciani, of the St. Egidio Community. “It’s a church event that wants to have a cultural dimension”, concludes Valeria Martano, of St. Egidio -. There will be a final declaration and appeal, but it will be something that will speak to people’s spirits, not a political proposal addressed to the institutions”.
