Some 5000 people took part in an ecumenical celebration in Cologne Cathedral on 8 June. It was held at the invitation of Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of the city, as part of the Kirchentag (Convention of the Evangelical Church), celebrated in Cologne this year. Apart from Cardinal Meisner, the ecumenical liturgy was concelebrated by the President of the Rhenish Evangelical Church Nikolaus Schneider and Greek-Orthodox Metropolitan Augoustinos. In his welcoming address, the Archbishop of Cologne appealed to the participants to strive to foster the life of faith in society, while in his sermon Schneider condemned the persecution of Christians throughout the world. Various events of an ecumenical character were held during the Kirchentag, in which the President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, also participated. On the progress of ecumenism, Lehmann admitted the slow progress: “there is a grain of truth in the criticism that ecumenism is suffering especially as a result of the inactivity of church leaders”, he said. But Lehmann also warned of the dangers of minimizing the differences of the positions between the Churches: “here too”, he added, “a mistaken courtesy exists”. Lehmann thus criticized those who hope for the rapid rapprochement of the confessions on controversial questions: “Those who underestimate the magnitude of our differences will only be able to achieve apparent successes”, he said. According to the cardinal, “the necessary points in common in ecumenism cannot be reduced to a minimum common denominator that impoverishes everyone. So long as genuine unity is not achieved, it is impossible to completely avoid a certain amount of competition between the Churches”, he added. But this, he explained, is not entirely a bad thing: “a kind of peaceful competition between the Churches can be ascertained and serves for the growth of Christianity in society”. Evangelical bishop Friedrich Weber of the United Evangelical Church of Germany (VELKD) announced the intention of the German Lutheran Churches to establish a group of dialogue with the German Bishops’ Conference, to explore ways of bringing the churches closer together at the theological level. “A flourishing ecumenical life exists in our communities”, underlined Weber. “The working of ecumenism at the local level is the norm. Now we need to speak of what that means at the ecumenical level. What we need to discuss – he said – is not individual issues like the priesthood or the sacrament, but the more fundamental question how faith and the Church are born and what they consist of”.
