By little steps

“My house is also your house!”: these were the words of welcome that Patriarch PAVLE of the Serbian Orthodox Church addressed to the participants in the 9th plenary session of the “International Mixed Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole” on 18 September, in the course of the Commission’s meeting being held near Belgrade (18-25 September 2006). Thus, after the last plenary session in Baltimore (USA, July 2000), the activity of the Commission chaired by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is also President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, and by Metropolitan Zizjulas of Pergamon, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has resumed. “From 13 to 15 December 2005 – says a communiqué put out by the aforesaid Vatican office – the official theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, coordinated, on the Orthodox side, by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, had inaugurated the current new phase with the meeting of the ‘Mixed Committee of Coordination of the Commission’, which had the task of preparing the plenary session in Belgrade and establishing its agenda”. THE MOSCOW DOCUMENT . “The re-activation of the dialogue – continues the communiqué – was possible thanks to a constant role of mediation and persuasion, encouraged by John Paul II, by Benedict XVI, by the commitment of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and by many contacts and forms of collaboration between the Catholic Church and the individual Orthodox Churches. It is based on a decision taken at the Fanar in September 2005, during a pan-Orthodox meeting convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I”. The examination of draft document prepared in Moscow in 1990 on “The ecclesiological and canonical consequences of the sacramental nature of the Church: conciliarity and authority in the Church” is on the order of the day at the plenary meeting of the Commission in Belgrade. This document has never yet been examined by the plenary of the Commission, since at the request of the Orthodox, the question of so-called “Uniatism” had first been tackled in the dialogue. UNITY IN DIVERSITY. After the welcoming remarks of Metropolitan Zizjulas of Pergamon, the courtesy call began with the recitation of the “Veni creator Spiritus” by the 60 participants (30 for each Christian confession), followed by the official salutes of Zizjulas himself and Cardinal Kasper. After the return to Sava Centar, where the meeting is being held, the work was opened by the interventions of Metropolitan JOVAN , bishop of Zagreb-Ljubljana, representative of the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who compared the prayer of Jesus for unity with the pupil of the eye, and recalled the role of the numerous martyrs and confessors who had given witness to the Christian faith from the first centuries to the present day. Metropolitan ZIZJULAS then underlined the importance of the dialogue “which has a healing effect”. The voice of the Catholic Church was brought to the meeting by Cardinal KASPER , who dwelt on the concept of unity in diversity according to the model of the Holy Trinity, to be able to give a credible witness. PRIVILEGED MEETING PLACE . For his part, Serbian Prime Minister VOJISLAV KOŠTUNICA welcomed the participants and expressed the desire of the Serbian Parliament that Belgrade should become a privileged meeting place due to the richness of its peoples and the growth of a code of values. Part of the work of the Commission on Tuesday 19 September was held behind closed doors. The Catholic delegation and the Orthodox delegation met separately. On Thursday 21 September the whole Commission took part in the Orthodox liturgy in the church of St. Mark in celebration of the feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary (celebrated on 8 September by those who follow the Julian calendar). In the afternoon it visited two Orthodox monasteries. Tomorrow the members of the Commission will participate in a eucharistic celebration in the Catholic cathedral of Belgrade, officiated by the Archbishop Stanislav Hocevar. On Sunday 24 September they will follow the liturgy in their respective churches according to the various rites. A CHURCH IN PRAYER. The local Catholic church is accompanying the work of the Commission with prayer vigils and perpetual adoration throughout the week, and with masses celebrated for Christian unity, during which the homilies have focused on the themes chosen by the conciliar and post-conciliar documents on the question. Many faithful are taking part in these prayers; others are ideally uniting themselves with them at a distance by participating in a kind of prayer relay. Each morning a minibus brings a group of faithful from Subotica that remains for 24 hours and then takes back the group of the previous day. Even if the journey is long, perhaps one day the importance of all these little steps will be understood.