“Don’t just pray! Act!” This is the appeal of the Christians living in Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, taken up and relayed by the Conference of European Churches (Cec/Kek), a body that brings together 125 Churches of the Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Old-Catholic traditions. An ecumenical delegation drew up a long report after a pastoral visit to Beirut and Jerusalem from August 10th to 15th. The visit, explains pastor Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of Cec (a member of the delegation), aimed at “showing ecumenical solidarity with the populations and the Churches that are affected by the conflict; offering the local Churches a chance to have a voice and be listened; meeting the persons in charge of the religious communities (Muslim and Jewish) the Churches are in contact with; stating that the ecumenical community is eagerly waiting for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations under the aegis of the UN to get out of the crisis”. De Clermont recalls that the Christians and non-Christians they met dream of a “democratic, multicultural and multi-confessional Lebanon”, because it would be “a guarantee for peace and for the whole of the Middle East”. (to be continued)
