“Monitoring the ecumenical situation in eastern Europe and identifying how the process of the Charta Oecumenica may help tackle existing difficulties”: that’s the objective of the Consultation to be held at Leanyfálu, in Hungary, from 27 to 30 November, on the invitation of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe ( CCEE) and the Conference of European Churches ( CEC-KEK). The Charta Oecumenica is a brief document containing the “guidelines for the growth of collaboration between the Churches in Europe”. Signed in April 2001 by the Presidents of CCEE and CEC, the Charter has been sent to all the Churches and Episcopal Conferences in Europe, to be studied, put into practice and adapted to the local context. It has now been translated into thirty languages. The programme of the Hungarian meeting, a new stage in collaboration prepared by the joint CCEE-CEC Committee, envisages reports from various countries in Eastern Europe on the “signs of hope and the difficulties of the ecumenical process at the present time”. The participants will also seek to “identify future prospects of work to make progress in ecumenical relations and to tackle together the challenges of the process of European integration”. The Consultation will be attended by some 40 delegates, representing the churches and episcopal conferences of 16 countries of Eastern Europe: Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary. The Consultation will also be an occasion to present the book jointly edited by the CCEE and CEC secretariats: “ Charta Oecumenica: a text, a process, a dream of the Churches of Europe”. It contains, apart from the text of the Charta Oecumenica, contributions that trace the main stages of the history and experiences that have been born in Europe thanks to this initiative of the Churches. The book has been published in English, French, Italian, and German editions.
