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s2smodern

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Brussels.

When I started my theology studies, I thought that Jesus was a Roman Catholic. Later, looking at his disciples, I had to admit that Simon the Zealot would probably never have joined any group which used the word “Roman” as its description… Now, more seriously, welcome to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity!

It has already become a tradition that every year at the end of January, just a few days before a big Ecumenical Prayer Vigil in the centre of Brussels, the Chapel for Europe organises a high-level ecumenical conference on inter-confessional and European issues. This year, on the evening of Tuesday 22 January, we were “Looking for the Soul of Europe” together with the Anglican Bishop in Europe Robert Innes as a keynote speaker and some senior representatives of the Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Can Christianity bring new life to 21st century Europe? What are the most important challenges? What are the best practices of different Christian confessions? Finally, what can we do together?

At a time when Europe is facing different challenges, and when “the next European parliamentary elections will determine not just the form of the European Union but whether there is a European Union” (from the dialogue of the First Vice President of the EU Commission, Frans Timmermans, with religious leaders) the voice of the Churches is extremely important. The audience at the Chapel was able to enjoy the diversity of approaches of different Churches, proposing  the celebration of Jesus Christ together on the one hand and social involvement together on the other hand.

However, whatever the approach was, everyone agreed that the Churches should provide a space for people to get together, welcoming poor and strangers, a space where people from different political options could “disagree well” – as seems to be important in the case of Brexit. At the same time, the Churches should challenge those who abuse the Bible to justify nationalistic or xenophobic approaches.

This was also confirmed by the homily of Pastor Steven Fuite, President of the United Protestant Church of Belgium, during the big Ecumenical Prayer Vigil, organised by Comité Interecclésial de Bruxelles, two evenings later on Thursday 24 January: “Many describe the Western Christian identity as ‘us against them’ and use this ‘identity’ as an instrument of European, nationalist or regionalist egoism, or even xenophobia and racism. This is totally the opposite to the true identity of European culture and to Christianity which is an identity of attention for all, personal freedom, fraternity and hospitality”.

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s2smodern