Missionaries of Aquileia

In the first centuries of the Christian era, missionaries set out from Aquileia (Italy) to evangelise the populations of Central Europe and often shed their blood tin bearing witness to the Word of God. On the day on which the Church commemorated (12 July) the first Bishop of Aquileia, Ermagora, and his deacon Fortunatus, the bishops and representatives of the Churches that received the Gospel from Aquileia met in the former Roman town. The eucharistic concelebration was presided over by the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, and by the Archbishop of Gorizia, Dino De Antoni (the diocese on which Aquileia now territorially depends). Also present at the rite were the bishops of North-Eastern Italy and their Slovene, Croatian and Austrian counterparts. Bishop Jean Christophe Lagleize of the French diocese of Valence and Monsignor Christoph Hegge, vicar general of the German archdiocese of Münster, also participated in this year’s rite. A SOCIETY OF THE GOOD LIFE. “We Christians want to contribute every day to the building of a society of the good life in which no one is oppressed, abandoned and killed. We shall do so by loving and working in His name, sharing the life of our brothers on the basis of the gift of faith, convinced as we are that we can offer nothing better also to those who have no faith or profess other faiths. We shall do so especially by expressing, and rendering present, the gift of our close bond of fraternal love. Doing so at Aquileia means expressing the Greek and Latin, Anglo-German and Slav roots of our Europe through the objective sign of eucharistic communion”. So said Cardinal ANGELO SCOLA on 12 July, during his homily in the ancient basilica consecrated by Patriarch Poppone in 1031. “The communion of Christians, with all due distinctions, is revealed – said Cardinal Scola – as a precious paradigm also at the civil level. It helps us to seek a fruitful and ever more intelligent collaboration between the Regions of North-Eastern Italy and between them and those of the European area to which they have historically belonged. Our peoples, in fact, cannot ignore the responsibility that the present of Europe asks of them”. LONG ECUMENICAL TRADITION. He came to Aquileia as a pilgrim along the roads travelled, almost two thousand years ago, by the Christians who were the first to bring the Gospel to his Church. JEAN CHRISTOPHE LAGLEIZE is the Bishop of Valence, the territory with the highest percentage of Protestants in France. “In some cities – points out the bishop – the number of Protestants is equal to that of Catholics. With them we have ecumenical relations with a long tradition”. If there is a concern it derives from the acknowledgement of a certain difficulty “within” the Churches of the Reformation: the bishop hopes this will not influence relations with the Catholic Church. The southern part of the diocese is characterized, instead, by a strong Muslim presence. The Church of Valence is called to a new effort to foster constructive dialogue with the Moslem world. With the rectors of the most important mosques, says Msgr. Lagleize, “really fraternal relations already exist at the institutional level”. There are, however, many smaller places of prayer whose location sometimes is not even known and with which it is not always possible to establish a dialogue. Divided into 22 parishes, each with 450,000 inhabitants, the Church of Valence can count on 120 priests (of whom only just over half in active pastoral service). The option of involving the laity has thus become inevitable. Over the last 30 years the laity has in fact assumed an ever more important role. Particular attention is devoted to lay formation. Some thirty are permanent deacons. Most diocesan services are now assigned to the laity: in recent months a woman was appointed chancellor of the Curia and another woman fills the post of diocesan delegate for the apostolate of the laity. BUILDING THE NEW EUROPE. Representing the German Church of Münster, the vicar general of the archdiocese, Monsignor CHRISTOPH HEGGE , was present at Aquileia. For several years now the German diocese has been helping economically in the missionary activities that the archdiocese of Gorizia is conducting in Ivory Coast. “The Italian, Slovene and Croatian Churches are points of intersection between the Latin, Slav and Germanic world: a source not of separation but of union. To them – says Hegge – is entrusted a special task in the construction of the new Europe: being messengers of reconciliation and brotherhood, essential prerequisites for the construction of real peace. And this is all the more important if we think that it was just in these lands that so many wars that tore Europe apart were fought”.