ecumenism" "
Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Benedictine abbey of Chevetogne, near Namur, in Belgium, were at the centre of a meeting held in St. Petersburg last week on the theme: “Russian-Belgian relations: history and actuality”. Reviewing the commitment made by the abbey of Chevetogne, ever since its foundation in 1925, to bringing Catholics and Orthodox closer together, the participants defined and elucidated three stages in the rapprochement between the two Churches: the liturgical renewal and contact with the theologians of the Russian diaspora before and after the second world war, the friendly relations with the metropolitan of Leningrad Nikodim in the 1960s, and the present period beginning in 1988, anniversary of the millennium in the Christianization of Russia and start of the religious “revival” in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Father Michel Van Parys, former abbot of Chevetogne and currently consultor of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, emphasized in particular “the wish of the congregation to maintain close links with the various monasteries recently reopened in Russia”.
