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XXX - 11(97) “Watchman, what of the night?” "The hour has come,
the hour is striking and striking at you, KEY ECUMENICAL EVENTS of 1997 in REVIEW
Adventist
Church Leader Heads Translation Team of
Ecumenical Bible for Poland - See Page
7
Editor's Preface This issue of WWN is a review of the
ecumenical trends - statements and events - which have occurred during the
year. Darren Lambert has gathered key facts as reported in the ENI Bulletin, a news release of the
World Council of Churches. There is an intensity in the religious world, both
within Protestantism and Catholicism, to achieve by the year 2000 or just
beyond, a visible unity in some form. This was prophesied in the revelation
given to John on the Isle of Patmos. (16:13-14.16) Due to our traditional
understanding of the Seven Last Plagues, we fail to separate the plague itself
from the reason God gives for pouring it out. For example, the first plague of
"noisome and grievous" sores was afflicted on those who had received
"the mark of the beast." The "mark" was received in
probationary time: the plague fell after the close of all human probation.
Likewise the sixth; the verses noted above refer to the reason why the plague,
while Verse 12 gives the plague. Of interest, in The Great Controversy, after noting the intents of Satan, it is
stated that he will achieve his objective "in the last remnant of
time." (p. 561) Then the verses from Revelation 16 are quoted. What
follows is a vital warning - "Except those who are kept by the power
of God, through faith in His word, the whole world will be swept into the ranks
of this delusion." With Satan transformed into an angel of
light and his ministers transformed as ministers of righteousness (II Cor.
11:14-15), the coming deception will be overwhelming. The arguments advanced
will deceive, if possible, “the very elect." At the International Eucharistic
Conference in Poland, Pope John Paul asked a series of questions which are hard
to answer for one opposed to the ecumenical movement. (See page 3, col. 2) The
final question asked was - "Can we be reconciled with one another
without forgiving one another?"
During the year the Pope and Catholic Bishops asked forgiveness for
atrocities against Protestants, including the St Bartholomew Day Massacre in
1572. (See three news items following the above question) Page 2 Ecumenical Review 1997 UNITY AT ALL
COSTS! London, 11
December, 1996 The Archbishop of Canterbury's official
visit to Pope John Paul II last week has left relations between the Anglican
and Catholic churches firmly on track, despite the issue of women priests,
according to the Archbishop's secretary for ecumenical affairs, Canon Richard
Marsh. Archbishop George Carey was with the Pope on five occasions in Rome last
week. The Common Declaration issued by the Pope and Archbishop Carey at the end
of their meetings acknowledges that the ordination of women as priests and
bishops in some provinces of the Anglican Communion (there are eight Anglican
women bishops) creates a "new situation". However, it urges moves to
"continue and deepen our theological dialogue". The issue of women
priests is, according to the Common Declaration, only one of several
fundamental issues that stand between the two churches and "that full
visible unity which is God's gift and our calling". Canon Marsh said that
"we have some problems of our own" with Petrine
primacy (the Pope's claim, as successor to St. Peter, to leadership of the
church). Archbishop Carey had previously accepted the idea of a
"historical primacy of honor" for the Pope, but has warned against
unity talks based on the idea that the Roman Catholic Church is "somehow
'more church"' than other churches. ENI
Bulletin - 96-0013. London, 28 May Cardinal Basil Hume, leader of the Roman
Catholic Church in England and Wales, on 27 May used the pulpit of Canterbury
Cathedral, the mother church of Anglicanism, to declare that moves toward
Christian unity could not include renunciation of the primacy of the Pope. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, spiritual head of the world-wide
Anglican Communion, was in the congregation as Cardinal Hume recalled that in
1982 Pope John Paul had come to Canterbury as a pilgrim, "to plead for
unity, not to cajole anyone into it". Echoing the Pope's 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint,
Cardinal Hume said: "It is not the primacy as such that is open to debate,
but the manner of its exercise. That is important. It does not threaten, and
indeed should not." He added: "I trust that I am not abusing the
privilege of preaching in this pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral." Cardinal
Hume's sermon followed a service of the previous day by Archbishop Carey, in
the presence of the cardinal and the Prince of Wales, where he made an appeal
for reconciliation and unity between Christians. In his sermon, Archbishop
Carey, the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke of the history of Christianity
"littered with tragedy and division, the results of which remain with us
today". He asked: "Can we, successors of Augustine's mission in this
land, reach for a vision of reconciliation that will lead us to the unity which
we know to be the will of God?" ENI
Bulletin - 97-0244. London, 24
January After centuries of difficult relations
between Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, a shrine which honors the Virgin
Mary but is part of a Scottish kirk (church) might
seem to be the ultimate ecumenical fantasy. It is, however, a reality at St.
Mary's Kirk, Haddington, 30 kilometres
from Edinburgh, where the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister, Clifford
Hughes, describes the adjoining Marian chapel, as "a marvellous
working demonstration of ecumenical unity". Both Anglicans and Roman
Catholics use the Marian chapel and, each week, an Anglican eucharist
and a Roman Catholic mass are celebrated in the chapel, whose centerpiece is a
handsome modern wood carving of Mary. The rector at Haddington,
Ian Paton, acknowledges there are "tensions" surrounding the
pilgrimage, when many hundreds of pilgrims converge on the church and chapel in
the name of Our Lady, bringing more than a whiff of Rome to the highly
Protestant Scottish lowlands. "A major event of the pilgrimage is a Roman
Catholic mass in the kirk," Paton told ENI "Locals see this happening in
their own church, and yet they are not able to take the communion. Some people
have difficulties with that." However, Paton believes that the pilgrimage
does far more good than harm. He is particularly keen on the prayer focus on
healing - of individuals, nations and the divided Church itself - and notes
with approval that increasing numbers of Presbyterians and Orthodox Christians
are being drawn in. ENI Bulletin -
97-0031. Geneva, 11 April The spiritual leader of the world's
Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos
I of Constantinople, has called on the Roman Catholic Church to join the World
Council of Churches in time for the WCC's 50th anniversary next year. The WCC
has 332 member churches around the world, among them the world's main
Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches. However the Roman Catholic Church,
whose 850 to 900 million members makes it the world's biggest church, is not a
WCC member, although there is co-operation between the WCC and the Vatican on a
number of issues. The call by Patriarch Bartholomeos
- with its reference to the WCC's 50th anniversary - takes on a particular
significance because the WCC is engaged in a wide ranging review of its
activities and structure. The WCC describes this process as a search for Common
Understanding and Vision (CUV). The WCC's general secretary, Dr. Konrad Raiser, has in the past appeared to rule out the
possibility of the Roman Catholic Church joining the WCC. After meeting the
Pope in 1994, he said that the different structures of the Roman Catholic
Church, which is organised at the world level, and
the WCC, which is a fellowship of nationally-organised
churches, made it difficult to imagine the Roman Catholic Church in WCC
membership. However, Dr. Raiser has also strongly affirmed the need to find new
"models" which would allow the Roman Catholic Church to take its
"natural place" in the ecumenical movement. One idea suggested by Dr.
Raiser which has been taken up in a first draft document on the CUV process and
sent to WCC member churches, is that the WCC could help create a new ecumenical
forum which could include the Roman Catholic Church and other churches which
are not WCC members. Patriarch Bartholomeos strongly
reaffirmed his commitment to ecumenism saying: "Everyone who declares him- Page 3 self against the goal of full Christian
unity stands against God's will." He also hoped that the Second European
Ecumenical Assembly of Europe's Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and
Anglican churches, to be held in Graz, Austria, in June this year, would
"move all Churches further along the path to reconciliation". ENI Bulletin - 97-0140. Graz, Austria,
30 June Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Milan and possible successor to Pope John Paul II, has
given his cautious backing to a proposal for a universal church council to
resolve differences, such as disagreement over the papacy, which divide the
main churches. The Cardinal's remarks differ from those of another prominent
Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Earlier this month, Cardinal
Ratzinger told a press conference in Rome that only the "Petrine principle" (the Roman Catholic doctrine that
the Pope is the legitimate head of the Christian Church), and not "conciliarity" could restore the unity of the whole
church. To consider any other path than the Petrine
principle was, according to the cardinal, "a romantic, unrealistic
dream". ENI Bulletin - 97-0295. London, 24 July A forum of church representatives from
England has called for the establishment of a permanent theology group to iron
out points of doctrine standing in the way of Christian unity. Canon Martin
Reardon, general secretary of Churches Together in England (CTE), which organised the forum, said, "Even the apparently
sharpest differences of theology were not insoluble." "Christians
will probably be divided on theology until kingdom come, but not about the same
things," he told ENI. "Once it was the nature of the Trinity, then at
the Reformation the nature of the sacraments, and now it's women priests."
Cardinal Basil Hume, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, referring to
previous meetings of the ecumenical forum, said in his closing remarks:
"In 1987 and 1990 we went to watch one another praying; now we pray
together. In 1987 and 1990 we were very polite to each other; now we are
friends." Another key idea from the forum is for the year 2000 to be
marked with "some public expression of reconciliation, repentance, and
renewal between the churches". "The idea is to express in public the
unity we already have," Canon Reardon said. The end of the first
millennium, he said, had produced division, so it was especially right that the
end of the second millennium should produce unity. ENI Bulletin - 97-0343. Hong Kong, 11
July The Vatican's leading authority on
ecumenism, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, today rejected suggestions that there were
insurmountable barriers which meant that Roman Catholics and Lutherans would
never be able to share the Lord's supper and restore full links between these
two major Christian families. Cardinal Cassidy was asked by ENI at a press
conference in Hong Kong whether the fact that most
Lutheran churches ordained women, while the Pope had declared that the Roman
Catholic Church would never ordain women, would prevent - forever - communion
between the Catholic and Lutheran traditions. Cardinal Cassidy responded:
"My reaction is always that this [work for the unity of the church] is not
only our work. Our Lord is calling us, and we are not engaged in protecting
ourselves. The grace is coming from God." Cassidy praised major progress
in Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, which is close to resolving the theological question
of justification by faith, which has been a key difference between the two
traditions since Martin Luther broke with Rome in the 16th Century. H. George
Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said
that the progress on the issue of justification
"offers a new paradigm, a new way of looking at things" between the
two churches. When such an agreement was reached, sometimes other differences
melted away, he suggested. Christoph Stier, the former Lutheran bishop of Mecklenburg, Germany,
said: "Basic agreement on the doctrine of Justification can provide a
basis for new mutual relationships ... To put it figuratively, a large,
previously insurmountable stone which has blocked the way to unity for such a
long time will be moved aside.... In the future, no one will be able to argue
that we can make no progress along the path to communion between the churches
because this obstacle is blocking the way. And then further steps can and must
be taken along this path." ENI
Bulletin - 97-0324. RECONCILIATION
WITH A "BEASTLY" APOLOGY Warsaw, 2 June Pope John Paul II has made an impassioned
appeal for ecumenical unity at the start of an 11-day pilgrimage to his native
Poland. Addressing the International Eucharistic Congress in the southern city
of Wroclaw on 31 May, the Pope said there could be "no turning back on the
ecumenical path". He said that he was asking Roman Catholics and members
of other churches for a new "joint Christian witness". "The
future of evangelisation is linked to the witness of
unity given by Christians", he told the conference. "In recent years,
the distance separating churches and ecclesial communities from one another has
diminished significantly. But it is still too great!" the Pope said.
"Can we be fully reconciled with Christ without being fully reconciled
among ourselves? Can we bear joint and effective witness to Christ if we are
not reconciled with each other? Can we be reconciled with one another without
forgiving one another?" ENI Bulletin
- 97-0237. Rome, 20 February Italy's Roman Catholic bishops have taken
the unprecedented step of asking forgiveness for the "suffering and
injury" inflicted on the country's Protestant minority over the centuries.
Italy's Waldensian Church, whose roots go back to the
12th century, is the oldest Protestant Church in the world. The appeal was made
on Sunday, 16 February at a service held in one of the biggest Waldensian churches in Rome, less than a mile from the
Vatican. During the service, Archbishop Giuseppe Chiaretti
of Perugia, read a message from the Italian bishops committing themselves
"to begin in earnest to work for the reconciliation of memories to accept
the burden (of history) and salve the wounds of memory by recognising
their existence and, when necessary, by forgiveness asked and given". The
event was attended not only by many Protestants, but also by Catholics, Jews
and Muslims who had just ended a three-day meeting at the nearby Waldensian Faculty of Theology. Writing in Italy's main
Protestant newspa- Page 4 per, Riforma, the Waldensian
theologian Paolo Ricca described the moment chosen by
the Italian bishops for "their courageous gesture" as "highly
symbolic". The service to mark the date of 17 February, 1848, is when
"Waldensians give thanks to God for not allowing
the Catholic Church and the powers in its service to wipe them off the face of
the earth." ENI Bulletin
-97-0064. Prague, 28 April Pope John Paul II has issued an appeal -
in a part of Europe with an ancient history of violence between Catholics and
Protestants - for charity, forgiveness and a renewal of the "longing for
unity". The Roman Catholic leader was speaking at an ecumenical service in
Prague's St Vitus Cathedral during a 48 hour visit to
the Czech Republic. "In charity we can together ask God for forgiveness
and find the courage to pardon one another for the injustices and mistakes of
the past, no matter how serious and offensive they were. We must bring down the
reciprocal barriers of suspicion and distrust so that we can build a civilisation based on love." The Pope reminded the
congregation that two years ago he had, "in the name of the Church of
Rome, asked pardon for the wrongs inflicted on non-Catholics, and at the same
time I gave assurances of the Catholic Church's forgiveness of the sufferings
which her children have undergone." The Pope also paid tribute to the work
of an ecumenical commission examining the condemnation of Jan Hus, the Bohemian
reformer who was burned at the stake in 1415 as a heretic. It was necessary,
Pope John Paul said, to examine without prejudice, "all those events,
still insufficiently understood, which led in the past to the disorder and
excesses between those who belonged to the community of the Reformation and the
Catholics". The Pope also spoke of his hope that churches and Christians
would be able to make a renewed effort for unity for the new millennium. The
experience of the annual world-wide Week of Prayer for Christian Unity made
"the yearning for a common Eucharist still greater", he said. ENI Bulletin -97-0203. Paris, 25 August Pope John Paul II left Paris yesterday at
the end of a triumphal four-day visit which attracted interest well beyond the organisers' expectations, and praise from Protestants who
welcomed reconciliatory remarks by the Roman Catholic Leader. At a vigil
service at Longchamp on the evening of Sat. 23
August, the Pope directly replied to criticism of the timing of his visit,
which coincided with the 425th anniversary of the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
on the night of 23-24 August 1572, when, on the orders of the Roman Catholic
monarchy, thousands of French Protestants were killed. The Pope told the Longchamp crowd of between 600,000 and 800,000: "We
cannot forget the sad massacre of St Bartholomew's Day, an event of very
obscure causes in the political and religious history of France. Christians
carried out acts which the Gospel condemns. Belonging to different religious
traditions must not constitute a source of opposition and tension. On the
contrary, our common love for Christ impels us to seek tirelessly the path of
full unity." The French Protestant Federation welcomed the Pope's
comments. ENI Bulletin -97-0405. EUCHARIST AND/OR
COMMUNION New York, 20
August The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA), voted at its Churchwide Assembly in
Philadelphia on 18 August to declare full communion with three US denominations
in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition - the Presbyterian Church, Reformed
Church in America, and the United Church of Christ. On the same day, the
Lutherans failed narrowly to approve a similar "Concordat of
Agreement" with the Anglican Church. However, the assembly approved
resolutions leaving the way open for full communion with the Anglicans to be
approved at the next assembly in 1999. The agreements allow for full acceptance
of clergy and sacraments of the partners, and denial of doctrinal differences
sufficient to justify church division. ENI
Bulletin - 97-0379. Graz, Austria,
30 June The biggest and most representative
gathering of European Christians this century finished on 29 June with an
open-air service attended by thousands of people. The official church delegates
adopted a "message" calling for the "unflagging pursuit of the
goal of visible unity" and the "unequivocal proclamation and defence of human rights". The president of the
Conference of European Churches (CEC) John Arnold, told ENI that the Graz
assembly had not brought the "visible unity" of the church closer
"in the strict faith and order sense of the word" as the assembly was
not intended to be a theological dialogue. "We haven't been able to make
our unity visible at the point when people would see us all taking communion
together," he said. "However, at another level we have made visible
the unity of very great diversity ... the worship occasions ... have had a
quite extraordinary visibility which shows that short of full visible unity
there is still a visible unity which is very well worth having." Many
participants, particularly those from Protestant churches in Western Europe,
wanted the assembly to make clear proposals on issues such as sharing the
Eucharist across denominations..." ENI
Bulletin - 97-0299. Leipzig, 23 June Germany's Protestants and Roman Catholics
have decided to organise a major ecumenical gathering
in the year 2003 - and they hope that the event will include a joint eucharist for Christians from both traditions. According to
Professor Hans Joachim Meyer, president of the central committee of German
Catholics both Protestants and Roman Catholics had a "common experience
that the separation at the Lord's Table is especially painful." According
to Rainer Meusel, president of the Protestant Kirchentag (church convention) there is a "clear
desire for greater unity between the two major Christian confessions in
Germany". But he stressed that carefully prepared discussions between
Protestants and Roman Catholics were needed if the aim of a joint eucharistic celebration was to be reached. ENI Bulletin - 97-0281. JERUSALEM Rome, 4 February
Pope John Paul II will almost certainly
make an official visit to Jerusalem, following an invitation on 3 February by
the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu told reporters Page 5 that the Pope intended to accept his
invitation to visit Israel. He made the announcement
after a 20-minute meeting with the Pope only at the Vatican. Although the
Vatican did not confirm that the Roman Catholic leader will visit Jerusalem,
Netanyahu told the Pope at the end of their meeting that he eagerly awaited the
Catholic leader's visit. Pope John Paul replied: "God bless Israel." Netanyahu
later told journalists that the Pope intended to come to Israel before the year
2000. The Vatican has for some time been planning for the Pope to visit Israel
as part of celebrations for the start of the new millennium. ENI Bulletin - 97-0056. Jerusalem, 27
March The Latin Patriarch, Michel Sabbah, who is the Roman Catholic (Latin) archbishop of
Jerusalem, said the "Holy City of resurrection and redemption is still the
main cause for the absence of peace. Everyone believes Jerusalem is the city of
peace, yet it remains the source of disputes. It is still, for security
reasons, forbidden for our believers." The Patriarch and the Custos of the Holy Land, Giuseppe Nazzaro
both agreed that the peace process was in trouble. "We encourage our
faithful to pray for peace, but they see no evidence of peace," Nazzaro said. "Still, Christians must believe in peace
and work for peace." The Latin Patriarch reiterated a plea for Jerusalem
to have "a unique and special status which guarantees its holiness and
sovereignty alike. God wanted this city to be a holy heritage for the three
monotheistic religions. The principle of sharing this city is the only way to
peace." ENI Bulletin - 97-0138. GENERAL Warsaw, 20
February Poland's churches hope that the first part
of an ecumenical Bible will mark a major step towards overcoming confessional
divisions. The 109-page edition of St. Matthews Gospel, signed by
representatives of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed churches, was
presented at a ceremony organised by the Polish Bible
Society in Warsaw on 17 February. Barbara Enholc-Narzynska,
the director of the society, said the translation had been "readily
accepted" by church leaders. She added that it was hoped a full ecumenical
Bible would be published by the year 2000. "Although minority churches
already enjoy good mutual relations here, real ecumenism in Poland can begin
only when Roman Catholics are involved," she told ENI. The translation of
St Matthews Gospel was undertaken by a team headed by Zacchariusz
Lyko, leader of the country's 10,000-member
Seventh-day Adventist church. The team expects to publish St. Mark's Gospel in
May. Barbara Enholc-Narzynska told ENI that
ecumenical translations had a "special dimension" in Poland, where 95
per cent of the population of 38.5 million identify themselves as Roman
Catholics. ENI Bulletin -97-0074. London, 19
February A Church of England bishop has joined
millions of Christians around the world by "giving up" something for
Lent. But Dr Alan Smithson, Bishop of Jarrow, has
made an unusual choice for his Lenten sacrifice - he has given up reading the
Bible and has taken up the holy Muslim book, the Koran, instead. "If only
Christians would take seriously the beliefs of other traditions and religions,
we would be all the better for it," Bishop Smithson told reporters.
"I am passionately concerned that we help the church to move into a wider
scene where we are not just preoccupied with Christian issues, but understand
other faiths, not as rivals, but as fellow travellers.
The western world needs to learn from Islam. There are qualities of holiness
and commitment that the faithful Muslim shows that the Western world can learn
from." ENI Bulletin - 97-0071. New York, 28
August A museum and study centre designed to
focus international attention on papal teachings and the impact of Roman
Catholicism world-wide is to be constructed in the US capital, Washington DC.
The centre is expected to draw half-a-million visitors a year and also to
provide facilities for visiting scholars. The Pope John Paul II Cultural Centre
is due to open in 2000, a year the Pope hopes will bring renewed commitment to
the Christian faith and the mission of the church. Pope John Paul II suggested
that the centre be located in Washington DC because of the US capital's leading
role in world affairs. While the museum and research facilities were directed
towards learning, the centre was also intended to serve the papal goal of evangelisation. ENI
Bulletin - 97-0381. Warsaw, 4 June Pope John Paul II has called on his fellow
Poles to "beg God on [their] knees" that he will live to lead the
Roman Catholic Church into the next millennium. "My years are adding
up," the 77-year-old Pontiff said to worshippers. "So you must beg
God on your knees that I cope with this task." In response, the crowd of
400,000 chanted: "We will help
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