The present of the Church

Promoted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the 2nd Conference of Orthodox Youth was held in Istanbul from 11 to 16 July on the theme “Members of the Church – Citizens of the world”. 900 youth from all the eparchies of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the world took part in it. The participants included youth from sister Orthodox Churches, monastic communities, other Christian Churches and confessions, theological schools, academies, institutes and seminaries, youth organizations and associations. The first such Conference was held in Istanbul in 2000: this year the young participants also created a special website (http://youth.ecupatriarchate.org) in which they posted programmes, documents, messages and photos, thus enabling others to follow the conference from a distance. in which they posted programmes, documents, messages and photos, thus enabling others to follow the conference from a distance. CHRISTIANS TODAY . Being Christian today means feeling oneself to be at the same time a member of the “body” that is the Church and part of a secularised world to which the Gospel needs to be brought; it means taking everything good that globalization offers, but never identifying oneself with it. These were the basic concepts underlying the keynote address with which Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I opened the 2nd Conference of Orthodox youth. “Our world is certainly no Paradise – remarked Bartholomew -, nor is the situation of Christians ideal”. “Being Christians in this world – he added – means obeying everything that is not contrary to God’s will. It means living like fish in saltwater, without becoming salty”. Patriarch Bartholomew then exhorted the young on the proper use of the means of communication. “Television, radio, the press and internet – he said – ought not necessarily to be at the service of evil and sin. They can be used, and also well, as a mouthpiece for Christian truths, and as a means to disseminate the Gospel of charity”. On the other hand, added the Patriarch, “let’s not forget that the majority of humanity have no idea of Christ and of the Gospel! It is tragic to observe that the “M” of McDonalds is globally better known than the Cross of Christ!”.THE PRESENT OF THE CHURCH . The programme of the Conference alternated issues of an ecclesial nature with those of current affairs (such as the Church’s response to the challenge of globalization and secularisation). Questions that particularly impinge on the youth world were also discussed, such as the family, loneliness, sexuality, ecology and the means of communication. There was also a slot dedicated to the participation of youth in the ecumenical movement. The Conference ended on 15 July with the reading out of the final document. “We don’t want to be thought of merely as the future of the Church – says the text – or to be consigned to the sidelines of current developments. We wish, on the contrary, to contribute in the present to what is being done today, and to contribute energetically to the Church’s pastoral mission and to her community and liturgical life”. STILL PROBLEMS . The Conference was supposed to end with a concert by the Greek singer-songwriter Dallara, famous also in Turkey, but the city authorities rescinded the permit at the last moment. “The government through the Ministry of Culture – explained Archimandrite Elpidophoros, head of the Secretariat of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in a briefing to SIR – had given us permission for the concert a month ago, but the day before it was due to take place the administration of the city of Istanbul rescinded the permit”. Tensions between the Turkish authorities and the Ecumenical Patriarchate have long existed. On 26 June, a Turkish court rejected the ecumenical character of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and affirmed that the Patriarch Bartholomeow I is only the head of the city’s small Greek-Orthodox community and not the spiritual head of some 300 million Orthodox scattered around the world. Regarding the cancellation of the concert, Archimandrite Elpidophoros explained that the Patriarchate had no intention of issuing any official comments or statements on the matter. In the final document, the Orthodox youth write: “We have experienced that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is not a national Church but embraces the ecumenical spirit and the universal dimensions of the Christian Gospel”. “One of the aims of the Conference – explains the archimandrite – was to give young people the chance to get to know the daily life of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and personally to get to know the Patriarch himself. What is written in the final document is simply what they saw with their own eyes, namely, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is not a national Church but a Church with wider horizons and an open spirit that embraces the whole of Christianity and humanity without making any discriminations on the basis of race, language or any other difference”.