ecumenism" "
In a message sent to all member churches, Pastor Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), invited Christians all over the world to unite in prayer and in the celebration of Easter, which this year by a coincidence that will be repeated five times in the next ten years was celebrated by the Churches on the same date. In France, the invitation seems to have been received with enthusiasm, given the many events promoted throughout the country this Easter: ecumenical celebrations, prayer vigils, moments of sharing and of fasting, processions through city centres. In the Ile de France, Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, and Anglican bishops, the presidents of the Lutheran, Reformed and Baptist communities, and the leaders of the Coptic and Syriac Churches, sent a common message to the faithful of their churches. In Paris, Christians of all confessions took part in the traditional Via Crucis procession led by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Lustiger, for the seventeenth year running, from the Champs-Elysées to the church of Saint-Pierre de Chaillot.
