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s2smodern

What are you doing in Ankara? This is often one of the first questions I hear when I travel. Each of the four of us of course has our usual activities: Michael writes for various publications (now on the “universal call to holiness”); Changmo studies Turkish, begins to engage with young people at the parish and gradually acclimatizes to Turkey; Alexis, responsible for this Turkish-speaking parish and the training of its catechumens, is also involved in media and the practical management of the residence; As for me, superior of the latter, I work in training and support in the service of the Church of Turkey, and have some commitments outside the country for interreligious dialogue, in various capacities.

         Activities and meetings also break up everyday life. This is how Michael, originally from a family who gave three of his sons to the Company, spent the month of April in his native land on the occasion of the accession of one of his brothers, already a bishop. and who attended the recent Synod on behalf of Ireland, at the Belfast headquarters. Changmo invites and is invited by his course companions but also Koreans living in Türkiye; thus during the Ramadan holidays, he was in Ephesus with a group of Korean religious working in the Middle East, while Alexis participated just nearby in the national training meeting for catechists.

For my part, just before these days of celebration, I was at that of the Jesuit superiors of the Province which was held in Cairo; after that, following training activities in Istanbul for future local permanent deacons, I accompanied the local delegation to Bursa, while the diocese is expanding to this city by opening a new presbytery there. I took advantage of this stay in this former capital of the Ottoman Empire (before Istanbul) to go right next door to İznik (Nicaea), where the universal Church is preparing to celebrate next year the 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council (325) which defined the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and fixed the date of Easter. By a happy coincidence, all Christians will celebrate Easter on the same day in 2025: will this be prophetic of what could happen, as Patriarch Bartholomew pleads in this direction? In any case, it seems that the Pope will come on this occasion: and you?

         At the community level, thanks to Changmo, we have welcomed new companions: four goldfish now frolic alongside us in a magnificent aquarium, while we take our meals served by one of the best cooks in the province ( says the Provincial! )… when she is not “in the village”, where she is now absent for a month… More seriously, we have just welcomed Dalibor Reniç, president of the Jesuit Conference of European Provincials and currently our major superior, with whom we thought about our current projects. In this context, we went as a community to the neighboring town of Eskişehir (250 km to the west, 1.20 hours by fast train) for a time of relaxation and reflection on a possible extension of our parish activity to this university town. crossed by a canal which gives it a seaside town atmosphere.

Just before his arrival, we welcomed Zarina for a few days, a young Kazakh Christian, originally from one of the Central Asian countries where our Türk cousins ​​live. She was stopping over in Ankara, returning to her native country, Almaty after studying theology in Poland. This gave us the opportunity to compare our ecclesial presences and to create links which could perhaps give rise to a twinning, while the Company which, if not present in this country, is responsible for the Church in Kyrgyzstan, on the southern border. If you want to know more about Kazakhstan and its Church, I invite you to watch an excellent report from KTO in French (2022, 50 min), where you will also hear Zarina ( https://www.ktotv.com/video/ 00409071/under-the-sky-of-the-Kazakhs ). For Kyrgyzstan, you will find an interview in French with the new apostolic administrator on the curia website ( https://www.jesuits.global/fr/2022/02/16/anthony-corcoran-sj-administrator-apostolic-au -kirgyzstan/ ) and numerous articles on the Conference website ( https://jesuits.eu/component/tags/tag/kyrgyzstan ).

I am delighted to see several of you again in Berlin at the beginning of July at the meeting of the Jesuits Among Muslims (JAM) but even more to see you all again at the end of the same month in Taanayel on the occasion of the Province meeting where our entire community will be present.

Jean-Marc Balhan, SJ

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