“More pastoral care for immigrants from Eastern Europe”: this will be promoted in the next few months by the archdiocese of Valencia (Spain), because of the “endless rise in the number of devotees” in that area. According to sources of the Diocesan Commission for ecumenism, over 50,000 immigrants of Oriental Catholic rite, mostly Ukrainians and Rumanians, already live in the archdiocese of Valencia. To develop a specific pastoral, a delegation of the Commission went this summer to visit some Ukrainian and Rumanian dioceses and met the representatives of the dioceses and the leaders of other religious confessions. The new pastoral for immigrants of Eastern Europe will aim at driving “the associations of devotees to offer them technical and human support”, by promoting for instance language courses for school students and young university students. This pastoral care for the immigrants of Eastern Europe is also related to the need to extend the ecumenical process and dialogue. On the occasion of the third European Ecumenical Assembly which is taking place in Sibiu over these days, many places within the diocese of Valencia have organised ecumenical meetings with devotees of different religious confessions.
