chURCHES IN BRIEF
Romania: assembly of Catholic Churches of Oriental RiteFrom 3rd to 6th November, Oradea, Romania, hosts the 14th meeting of the bishops of the Catholic Churches of Eastern rite. “We are aware that the Catholic Churches of Eastern rite in Europe have their own contribution to make to the thirteenth assembly of the Episcopal Synod of 2012”, states His Beatitude Lucian Muresan, Major Archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Iulia of Rumanians and president of the Rumanian Bishops Conference. The bishops who lead the fourteen Catholic Churches of Eastern rite in Europe will focus the reflections of their yearly meeting on the “new evangelisation”. The meeting in Oradea, as explained in a note by the Council of the European Bishops Conferences (Ccee), will give the Greek-Catholic bishops a chance to exchange their points of view about such topic in the run-up to the 13th assembly of the Episcopal Synod (Rome, October 2012), and is evidence, after the Plenary Assembly of Ccee (Tirana, Albania, 29 September-2 October) and the next workshop of Ccee in Rome on 22nd November, the attention that the Church in Europe is paying to such issue. Sponsored by Ccee, the meeting also aims to be “an opportunity for Episcopal communion and to make the wealth of the different eastern traditions of European Catholicism known all over Europe”. The topic of the new evangelisation will be introduced by five presentations, which will linger on as many specific aspects. The meeting will be opened by the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation, mgr. Rino Fisichella. This will be followed by the speeches of mgr. Boris Gudzik, rector of the Greek-Catholic university of Lviv, about the Catholic Churches of Eastern rite twenty years after the fall of the totalitarian regimes; Father Marko Rupnik, a world-known artist, about Byzantine sacred art in the context of the new evangelisation; Cesare Alzati, professor at the Catholic University in Milan, about the contribution of the Catholic Churches of Eastern rite to the new evangelisation in Europe. The last point will be introduced by father Alexandru Buzalic, professor of theology at the University of Cluj-Napoca, about the presence of “new movements” in Eastern Europe and above all in Romania. Each presentation will be followed by an extensive debate, aiming to develop a shared contribution for the Synodal assembly of 2012. The meeting, organised and hosted by mgr. Virgil Bercea, bishop of Oradea-Mare, will be attended by card. Péter Erdõ, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and president of Ccee, mgr. Cyril Vasil, secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, and the apostolic nuncio to Romania and to the Republic of Moldova, mgr. Francisco Javier Lozano.Czech Republic: St. Agnes and the fall of the WallThe celebrations of the Jubilee Year of Saint Agnes of Bohemia will culminate on 12 November with the celebration of a mass marking the 800th anniversary of her birth. The celebrant will be Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne and special legate of the Pope for this occasion. Two exhibitions will be inaugurated as part of the celebrations. Children’s paintings from the two Republics – Czech and Slovak – with the title “Saint Agnes of Bohemia: the genius of the Czech teacher” will be displayed in the convent of Strahov. Another exhibition, organized by the archdiocese of Prague, the National Gallery and other ecclesiastical and cultural institutions, will be inaugurated on 25 November: its theme will be “Saint Agnes of Bohemia: the princess and the nun”. It will be the first attempt ever to reconstruct a comprehensive review of the various aspects of her life and apostolate, through the medium of figurative art. Saint Agnes was born into the Bohemian royal family (youngest daughter of King Otakar I Premysl) in 1211. She was proclaimed a saint by John Paul II in 1989, just a few days before the fall of the Communist regime in the countries of the Soviet bloc. So she has become a symbol of these events. According to Peter Kubin, of the Institute of Christian Art at Charles University in Prague, “Saint Agnes substantially influenced the ‘velvet’ character of the revolution. As a king’s daughter, she renounced her wealth and prestige, adopted a life of poverty (as member of the Franciscan Poor Clares), and founded the largest hospital in the country for the poor and the sick, becoming the perennial example of Christian love”.Ukraine: spiritual retreat with fr. Marko Ivan RupnikThe modern artist and theologian, jesuit Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, conducted spiritual retreat for the bishops of the Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Greeek Catholic churches on 24 – 26 October in Lviv-Briukhovychi. “Annual retreats with members of the Bishops’ Conference of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine and the Synod of Bishops of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) are held in response to the desire of pope Benedict XVI. He wants the representatives of episcopates of both Latin and Byzantine Rites to hold meetings and create internal unity in the Catholic Church”, explained patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the UGCC. He considers the teaching of Fr. Rupnik very constructive, noting that in Europe he is known mainly for his mosaics. In particular, he is the author of the mosaic in the chapel Redemptoris Mater in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican. The retreat was followed by the 9th meeting of the bishops of both rites on 26 October.
