June 22 in Tarsus

“Paul, Testimony and Apostle of Christian identity”: this is the title of the Letter of Turkey’s Bishops Conference issued on the occasion of the Pauline Year (June 28 2008 – June 29 2009) called by the Pope for the bi-millennary of the birth of Saint Paul, and made public today. The Pauline Year was presented in the past days at the press office of the Holy See. It will be officially inaugurated by Pope Bendedict XVI in Rome’s Basilica of Saint Paul outside the walls where the Pope will open one of the five doors: the symmetrical one at the Holy Door will then become the “Pauline Door”. In Turkey, according to the Bishops’ Letter, the Pauline Year will commence on June 22 in Tarsus, the hometown of apostle Paul, with an ecumenical celebration and a Mass officiated by cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.The “duty” of unity. “Long before being Catholics, Orthodox, Syrians, Armenians, Caldeans, Protestants, we are Christians. On this basis is founded our obligation to be testimonies. We must not let out differences trigger attitudes that would go to the detriment of the unity of faith; we must not allow that those who aren’t Christian drift away from Christ because of our divisions”. The exhortation was addressed by Turkey’s Bishops in the Pastoral Letter. In the document, the prelates encourage Christian believers present in the Country to “intensify dialogue with the Muslim world: a dialogue of life, where there is sharing and coexistence; a dialogue of undertakings, where Christians and Muslims work together”; a dialogue of “religious experience” and that of “theological exchange”. “This dialogue – they explained – doesn’t mean putting aside one’s religious beliefs. A true dialogue takes place when each party preserves his identity of faith, never denying the difficulties that may be encountered by those who are not Christian”. As in a diaspora . The Bishops Letter equally enjoins to unite and strengthen Christian identity, following the teaching of Saint Paul, “the patrimony of all the disciples of Christ, which is our own patrimony in particular, since we were born in the land which witnessed his birth, where he preached to Christ incessantly testifying to him in his many ordeals”. “Our communities experience the situation of a religious minority”, the document states. “We are within a Muslim world where the faith in God is visible in traditional aspects and in the establishment of new religious Muslim communities. This situation, which under some aspects is similar to that of the first communities living in a diaspora, compels us to be more aware of our own identity” which, the bishops declared, isn’t based on “the faith in God, which we share with our Muslim brothers and with many other men”, but on the “faith in Christ”. The Bishops remarked that the writings and the testimony of Saint Paul “have always been a stimulus, leading Christians to deepen their own faith. Paul’s opposition to the many attempts to transform Christian faith into a religious phenomenon, which would not require conversion, reminds us that we aren’t born Christians, we become Christians”. Ecumenical connotation . In preparing for the Pauline Year, the prelates of the Country recommend Christian communities to “read the Letters” of the Apostle, “to make them the object of study within Parish Churches and to undertake ecumenical initiatives”. “On our part – they continued – we exhort you to go as pilgrims in those places bearing Pauline memory: Tarsus, Antioch, Ephesus”. The Letter includes some practical information: “As representatives of the Catholic Church in Turkey, we shall commence the Pauline Year on June 22, 2008 in Tarsus with the Eucharistic celebration officiated by Cardinal Walter Kasper”. After the solemn opening there will be a symposium on Saint Paul in Tarsus-Iskenderun (June 22-24). Part of the program includes a national pilgrimage on the footsteps of the apostle in Tarsus, Antioch and Ephesus. The prelates declared that more initiatives are being planned “jointly with our Orthodox and Protestant brothers”, whose details will be available in the coming months. The initiatives and events held in the Pauline Year will in fact have an ecumenical connotation. “With Cardinal Kasper we are preparing a letter of invitation to all the major representatives of Christian communities”, said Cardinal Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, archbishop of Rome’s Basilica of Saint Paul, during the press conference. The transformation of the present baptistery located between the Pauline basilica and the cloister into an “ecumenical chapel” was equally announced during the conference. “The chapel”, the Cardinal explained, “will constitute a special place where our Christian brothers and their groups coming as pilgrims to the tomb of Saint Paul can pray singularly or together with Catholics without the celebration of the sacraments”.