Christians in Berlin” “

The Oecumenische Kirchentag, the ecumenical Church Congress promoted jointly by German Catholics and Protestants together with other Christian confessions (cf.SirEurope no.33/2003), is due to open shortly in Berlin. Over 150,000 visitors are expected to attend it, in large part young people from seventy or so different countries, including many “religionslos” (people of no religion). They will participate in the some 3,000 meetings to be held in the huge Trade Fair area in Charlottenberg, as well as inside churches and public buildings, from 28 May to 1 June. With the slogan “Be a blessing”, the Oecumenische Kirchentag will focus on the responsibility shared by all Christians in social, political and economic life and in the common search for justice and peace. A message of John Paul II will be read out at the opening ceremony. “What is paramount is the desire to meet together, and the urge for unity, even if the obstacles are recognised. For the main protagonists are being joined by Orthodox, Old Catholics, members of the minor reformed churches; and to them will be added Moslems, Jews, Hindus and freethinkers”, points out the journalist Angelo Paoluzi, an expert on the situation of Christianity in Germany. Why in Berlin? There are four main areas of debate: bearing witness to the faith – living in dialogue; seeking unity – meeting each other in diversity; respecting human dignity – preserving freedom; shaping the world – being responsible for our own actions. All this – continues Paoluzi – is “against the background of the crisis of and contemporary need for religion, the human dimension in the practice of the faith, and the spiritual dimension to be given to politics”. Not by chance, he explains, “is the chosen venue Berlin. For years the city has been the symbol of the division of Europe, with the wall that turned it into a Western enclave incorporated in a hostile ideological system, the possible detonator of a crisis at the world level. Today it’s the capital most interested in the development of the European Union eastwards, seeing that eight out of the ten new states shortly to enter the EU fall, from an economic point of view, within its sphere of interest”. A significant fact is that, alongside German, English and French, the fourth main language at the Oecumenische Kirchentag is Polish, and that the interventions of Polish guests outnumber those of the French and English, both more or less on the same level as the Hungarians, Czechs and Romanians; less prominent are the presences from the Balkan area (Bosnia and Croatia) and from the former USSR (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia). The Italian guests are few, but distinguished. Not only Europe. The interest, however, is not just limited to Europe, nor to ecumenism. The debate will also focus on the Middle and Near East, the degradation of Africa and of vast areas of the Far East, and the difficulties of Latin America in overcoming its economic and political crises that are fuelling terrorism and repression. The future of Israel and Palestine will be discussed, among others, by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Msgr. Michel Sabbah, the rabbi Michael Melchior, the sheik Tal el Sider, from Hebron, in the Territories, and the Canon of Coventry Andrew White. The plight of Africa, abandoned, plagued by wars, endemics and genocide, will also be prominent on the agenda, and the causes of the tensions that afflict South America reflected on. Reflection on these issues will always be “in a perspective – says Paoluzi – inspired by the spiritual values of man, and his quest for meaning. And the same goes for the reflection on reconciliation or on tragic events in the life of our continent in the recent past. The Cardinal of Prague Miloslav Vlk will chair a ‘dialogue’ between Germans, Poles and Czechs. Andrea Riccardi will propose a reflection on the martyrs of the twentieth century: two exhibitions at the Kirchentag are dedicated respectively to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Protestant, and Franz Josef Metzger, Catholic, both of them assassinated for their faith in the Nazi death camps”, concludes Paoluzi”.