“Europe of dialogue. Being Christians in a pluralist Europe” is the theme of the congress of the European Christian lay associations being held at Gniezno (Poland) from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 September. Organized by the St. Adalbert Foundation, the meeting will bring together some 800 participants, including the representatives of over 250 European Christian associations, religious and civil authorities, university teachers and experts. Together they will reflect on the dialogue between Christianity, contemporary culture and the other religions. The relation of collaboration between the Churches and the institutions of the European Union, guaranteed by the new Constitutional Treaty, will also be examined during the debate. The congress is to be held in a city with a millennial history: the place of the beginning of the christianisation of the Polish state and the site of an historic “summit” between Emperor Otto II and Boleslaus the Just, the future first king of Poland (1000). The ecumenical and inter-religious connotation of the congress is strong: it aims to be a “laboratory of exchange” between Christians of Eastern and Western Europe on the “spiritual tenor” of the Europe of the future. A “Feast of the Bible” will be celebrated on Saturday 17 September with the presence of Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Bishop Hilarion, representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European institutions, and Bishop Wolfgang Huber, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The speakers will also include the former chief rabbi of Rome Elio Toaff, and exponents of Islam. The dialogue promoted by the congress will thus be extended to the non-Christian religions and expressed in a moment of prayer for the fidelity of Europe to its own religious roots and for the gift of peace.
