Charta Oecumenica<\/a>, a document signed in Strasbourg in 2001 by CEC and the Council of European (Catholic) Bishops’ Conferences, and intended to boost inter-church cooperation.<\/p>\nHowever, many of its proposals have not been implemented by churches, and many Christian faithful are unaware of its recommendations, said Bartholomeos.<\/p>\n
“The result is that what we have said is not matched by our actions, which damages the credibility of our churches, and gives the impression that we are incapable of finding solutions to current problems,” the Patriarch stated.<\/p>\n
In February 2008, the president of CEC, the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, proposed the creation of a Council of European Churches that would also include the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists at the start of the Lyon assembly, de Clermont, a French Protestant pastor, urged steps to increase collaboration with the Catholic Church as well as with Evangelical groups.<\/p>\n
“There is already a structure for cooperation between CEC and the Roman Catholic Church but this is not enough,” said de Clermont. “The world of today couldn’t care less about our [Christian] disputes. We need to have a common voice of the Christian churches in Europe.”<\/p>\n
The history of CEC goes back to January 1959, when representatives from 45 Protestant and Orthodox churches in 20 countries in Eastern and Western Europe gathered in Nyborg, Denmark.<\/p>\n
During the Cold War, CEC helped bridge the divide between East and West. In recent years, the church grouping has played an active role in representing churches to institutions such as the European Union, the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quote from the story: Bartholomeos warned that the failure of churches in Europe to match their statements about unity with specific actions calls into question their credibility. The Charta Oecumenica (cited below) makes a case for Christian unity. Did its authors have the American Orthodox in mind, as well? Probably not. Sample: Various forms of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[869,102,45,160,296,277,99,275],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2989"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2994,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989\/revisions\/2994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}