A major pillar

Austria’s Metropolitan Orthodox bishop Michael Staikos died on October 18 in Vienna after a long illness. Of Greek nationality, in Austria since 1964, Michael Staikos was elected Metropolitan of Austria and Exarch of Hungary in 1991 by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the highest representative of the Orthodox Church in this central-European country. In October 2010 he chaired Austria’s Orthodox Bishops’ Conference. For two mandates, from 1995 to 2000, Staikos also served as the President of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Austria (Örkö). He served as member of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for many years. All the members of the Catholic and Protestant clergy in Austria joined in sending their sympathies. Follow significant words of condolences by those who knew and worked with the Metropolitan bishop, deeply committed for the progress of ecumenism. Pillar of ecumenism. “A pillar of ecumenism not only for Austria,” said cardinal Christoph Schönborn, president of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, to the Catholic press agency Kathpress, who conveyed his “utmost gratitude for his great example of Christian communion in Austria”. Schönborn described Staikos as “the spiritual son of Card. König”. This bond developed into “Metropolitan Staikos great openness towards the Catholic Church”. The Metropolitan bishop was also “a visible sign of the Orthodox Christians’ sense of belonging to Austria”. “He was a visible sign that Orthodox Christians have become an ever more important part of the population”, Schönborn added, referring to the Orthodox community in Austria which now counts 500.000 faithful. A precious role. Lutheran Evangelical bishop Michael Bünker, vice-president of Örkö, paid homage to the memory of the Metropolitan, recalling his long mission, begun in the 1960s. “For him there was no alternative to ecumenism, to greater Church unity”, Bishop Bunker recalled. The Metropolitan’s ecumenical approach “has brought together also the Orthodox and the Evangelical Churches”. To this regard, Bünker highlighted “the precious role of the Metropolitan bishop in the European dialogue between Orthodoxy and the Evangelical Churches, which in 2008 brought to the recommendation on the mutual recognition of baptism in Vienna”. Bünker underlined that Staikos, “was committed with the other Churches, with Islamic and Jewish communities, to ensure that the contribution of religious communities to integration were considered and appreciated”. Everyone’s loss. “Not only the Orthodox Church: all Austrian Churches are suffering from a major, painful loss”, remarked the Episcopal Orthodox Romanian bishop for Austria, Nicolae Dura. “Staikos represented Orthodoxy in an exemplary way at very high levels, in Austria and abroad, where he highlighted the laudable ecumenical cooperation in Austria. In fact, it is not a coincidence that Staikos was elected örkö President twice”, bishop Dura pointed out. In fact, “thanks to his restless commitment he promoted cooperation among the five Orthodox Churches recognized in Austria for the teaching of religion in schools and the Orthodox commitment for ecumenism”. The President of the Catholic “Pro Orient” Foundation Hans Marte, set up by card. Franz Konig in 1964, which operates for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, recalled Staikos’ decade-long bond with the Foundation and the profound friendship with the cardinal, a protagonist of the Austrian Catholic Church. The news of the death of the Metropolitan “was received by Pro-Orient with deep pain and sadness. The countless meetings, his good counsel, and the promotion of the dialogue and reconciliation between the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches fill us with gratitude”.A convinced Europeanist. “I lost a faithful friend and a confrere”, said the auxiliary bishop of Vienna Msgr. Helmut Krätzl. “We will be missing dearly Metropolitan Micheal. But his memory lives on and it represents a major challenge for our common Christian future”. Krätzl, underlined the Metropolitan’s aspiration to “a Christian Europe and a European home, where all peoples live in a peaceful community in solidarity, in ecumenical union, preserving the various confessional and religious traditions, cultures, customs and uses, like a harmonic symphony”. Also the political world recalled the Metropolitan. Federal president Heinz Fischer mentioned Staikos’ “great merits” in the realm of “ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and in the dialogue between cultures and civilizations”. Fischer underlined that “being a convinced Europeanist”, Staikos “always supported EU enlargement with the entry of Eastern and Southern European countries”.