A meeting of the Christian Churches to celebrate together the period of Advent took place at the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul on 26 November. At the invitation of His Beatitude Mesrob II, Patriarch of the Apostolic Armenians, a number of high-ranging representatives of the various Christian Churches in Turkey met at the Patriarchate to celebrate Vespers together. They included: the Catholic Armenian archbishop Hovhannes Tcholakian; the Latin apostolic vicar of Istanbul, Msgr. Louis Pelatre; the representative of Bartholomew I and of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate; the bishop of the Catholic Syrians Msgr. Yusuf Sag; the representative of the Orthodox Syrian Patriarchate Metropolitan Filuskinos Yusuf Cetin; the pastor of the Union Church Dutch Chapel, Benjamin Van Resenburg; the secretary of the Bishops’s Conference of Turkey, Father Mauro Pesce; the spokesman of the Bishops’ Conference and attaché to the Nunciature, Msgr. Georges Marovitch; and various representatives of the Christian churches, Armenian dioceses and Catholic religious orders. After a procession from the seat of the Armenian Patriarchate to the church, an ecumenical liturgy was held in Armenian, Turkish, English, French, Syrian, and Greek. In his homily Mesrob II emphasised “the value of unity between the churches, the common celebration of Advent and the importance of being united to bear witness and also to be more heard at the European level”. After the final blessing imparted by His Beatitude to all the other bishops, the congregation returned in procession to the seat of the Armenian Patriarchate. “The ceremony commented Father Mauro Pesce in a briefing to SIR marked an important moment, and one particularly significant at the ecumenical level, in terms of the atmosphere that has been created between all the participants, prelates and faithful. It is the intention of Mesrob II to repeat the event on the occasion of the most important feasts that bring together all the Churches in Turkey”.
