Evening dialogue

Friday may 30, 6 p.m. : the 4th edition of the “Long nights of the Churches in Austria” is about to begin. Some 600 Churches representing all Christian confessions open their doors to 2,700 different events. Ecumenical project. In Vienna, where the “long night” is being celebrated for the fourth time, the event starts at 6 p.m. with an ecumenical celebration in the Schottenkirche. The representatives of all Christian churches, including auxiliary bishop Helmut Krätzl, metropolitan orthodox bishop Michael Staios and the evangelical superintendent Hans-jörg Lein, will celebrate the ecumenical Vespers focusing on “ Engaging for the good of the city”. In the district of the capital’s archdiocese some 172 churches will take part in the initiative. Visitors will be able to choose from approximately 1,000 events held from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. During the press conference presenting the initative, held a few days ago in Vienna, the vicar of the bishop Karl Rühringer highlighted the wide range of events: debates, Eucharistic celebrations, prayers, guided tours, exhibitions, films, dance, theatre, cabaret, lectures and a great amount of music, along with “extravagant and non-conventional” initiatives also addressed to those “who are usually distant from the Church”. These events, claimed Superintendent Lein, “primarily highlight the fact that the Church concerns every human existential sector”. Lein defined “the long night” an “ecumenically successful project” which brings out “the tie which mutually binds Christian confessions”. The vicar of the Romanian-Orthodox bishop Nicolae Dura said he looks forward to “A long night of Churches” throughout Europe. “This could become an important contribution for the spiritual unity of Europe”, he added.An embarrassment of riches. An exhibition on the Pope’s recent visit, the presentation of a crime-novel by its author, shepherdess Christine Hubka; the showing of eleven Austrian and Swiss shorts; an exchange of experiences on abjuration by religious from different Christian confessions: these are some of the many initiatives scheduled in Vienna. Many were the events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of 1938, the year of the Anschluss, which marked the beginning of Nazi dicatorship. For example, in the Minorite Church, the choir of the parish of Mauthausen will perform chants composed in the Gestapo prisons and in the concentration camps. They will execute also the “Mauthausen-Kantate” by Mikis Theodorakis. In the Franciscan refectory will be shown the Oscar-winning Holocaust movie “The counterfeiter”, by Austrian film director Stefan Ruzowitzky. The evangelical Church Thomaskirche will host a debate on this Church’s co-responsibility. A workshop on the Church and Society in 1968 is being held in the Luteran Church. Speakers include Trautl Brandstaller, Rudolf Mitlöhner and theologian Paul Zulehner. Caritas President Franz Küberl will be taking part in a round table on the Roma’s situation. Events for children are also envisaged: a musical will be performed in the Canisiuskirche, while in the Lutheran church of Währing, children will experience the adventure of Noah’s arch. The musical program is equally rich: sacred ancient music, modern music, or more unusual events like “find-fight-follow night prayer”, a mixture of music, action and text, presented in the youth Church of Saint Florian. In St.Michael/Heiligenstadt’s Church, which hosts a Greek-Catholic Melchite community, ecclesiastic hymns in Arabic will be performed. In the Orthodox Romenian church will be sung the typical hymns “Rufe zu Christus”. The Bulgarian orthodox Church is organizing an evening of prayers and in the Polish Church the youth organized a moment of meditation with Easter chants and on the Passion. Not only Vienna. The long night involves for the third time upper Austria and for the second time the Kärnten region. Upper Austria counts 50 churches in Linz, Vöcklabruck, Steyr and St.Marien which will be hosting over 200 events. Churches will offer a spiritual, cultural, musical and social program which, as underlined by evangelical superindent Gerold Lehner, “in present societies constitute the place of a different world” . “The Long night” will enable people to understand what it means to be before the presence of God”. Thirty-nine Churches in Kärnten take part in the event. “Churches are places of encounter, invitation and hospitality”, remarked Msgr. Alois Schwarz, bishop of Gurk, during the presentation of the event. “In this framework, the Church has the opportunity of presenting what happens in Churches during the year”, he added, recalling also the “great availability to dialogue and encounter”, experienced by participants in the past edition.