Transfiguring the world

The 15th International Colloquium of Orthodox Spirituality was held at the Monastery of Bose (Italy) from 16 to 19 September. Promoted by the monastery and held under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Moscow, this year’s Colloquium was dedicated to the mystery of Christ’s Transfiguration. Not only representatives of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but also those of the Reformed Churches were present at Bose. “The meeting – explain its promoters – was aimed at proposing a real itinerary to grasp the mystery of Transfiguration in all its profundity, and in all its significance for man in our time”. If this was its thematic aim, the Bose Colloquium was also revealed, as it is each year, as an extraordinary occasion for encounter and ecumenical exchange between representatives of the Churches at the highest level. THE SACRIFICE OF UNITY. “After a necessary development that led us to dampen the first enthusiasm of ecumenical commitment and to understand the difficulties of our feat, nowadays we are going through a more complex stage that gives pride of place to the most serious obstacles to be overcome”: it was stated by card. Walter Kasper, president of the Papal Council for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians, in his welcome address to the XV International Ecumenical Meeting where he talks about the situation of the ecumenical dialogue nowadays. According to Kasper: “Those who think the easier experience we have done so far is useless are wrong, and those who think the door to communion is impassable are also wrong. This is instead about being patient, constantly living the sacrifice of unity, as the Servant of God John Paul II had asked in his encyclical letter devoted to ecumenical commitment”. “We must – states Kasper – question ourselves honestly. We must decide whether our commitment is good, provided everything works out smoothly and provided our actions are really inspired by confidence in He who can everything, in the times and in the ways that His Spirit dictates”.“CALLED TO FOLLOW CHRIST”. Stated Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his message to the monastic community of Bose. “The Transfigured Christ takes centre stage in the life of our Church, and its spiritual exploration can be decisive to the understanding of the truth of our faith”. According to Bartholomew I, two are the dangers one might bump into: “The desire to delve deep into the mystery of the Transfiguration as if the latter were an object of scientific understanding and intellectual knowledge” and “considering the manifestation of the radiance of the divinity on Mount Tabor as a fate that is exclusive to the chosen ones”. “All of us, with no exception, regardless of our age, gender, social status, inherited wealth or background, have been called to the same perfection as that to which the Lord called the three apostles”.TRANSFIGURATION IN THE WORLD . “In Orthodoxy the theme of the Transfiguration and the idea of divination linked to it, in other words, the transfiguration of the human being”, reveals “the divine mystery of what man and the world around us are called to become”: that’s a passage from the message of ALEXEI II , Patriarch of Moscow. “On how far we Christians – said Alexei II – are able worthily to correspond to our vocation will depend the spiritual quality of the world around us”. “Since Jesus was transfigured with a view to the transfiguration of the world – writes SAMUEL KOBIA , general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) – the ecumenical movement must give a particular importance to a spirituality centred on life”. “The 9th Assembly of the WCC in 2006 – recalled Kobia – identified spirituality as one of the priorities to place on the agenda for the next seven years. That raises a question: how does the life of Christ reconcile spirituality and the application of Christian ethical principles to human situations?”.THE RUSSIAN CULTURE. “The history of the Russian Orthodox culture shows that the Transfiguration was included in the list of the assumedly crucial theological and traditional values”: it was stated by Aleksandr Sorokin, professor at the Academy of Saint Petersburg, in his speech at the meeting. In ancient Moscow and in Saint Petersburg – explained Sorokin, many were the churches and monasteries dedicated to the Transfiguration. “There may be a bond – he added with reference to people’s religiosity – between it and the harshness of the climate: hard living conditions make man rely more strongly on the Maker, who can turn the ice-clad land into a garden”. “Even the doctor in Bulgakov’s novel ‘The heart of a dog’ is named Preobrazeskij, which means ‘of the transfiguration’: the book meant to show the powerlessness of the God-less man”.