The Presbyterian Outlook<\/a><\/p>\n

(ENI) \u2014 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I, a spiritual leader who represents Eastern Orthodox Christianity, has urged young Christians to resist secularization in Europe in a message to an ecumenical meeting that was greeted by global and regional leaders.<\/p>\n

“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe no longer recognizes the place for Christianity that history dedicated to it \u2014 it is as if Christianity were being expelled from the history of Europe,” said Bartholomeos I, the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.<\/p>\n

The patriarch made his appeal in a message sent to a five-day European Youth Meeting, organized by France’s ecumenical Taiz\u00e9 Community in Poznan, Poland.<\/p>\n

“We wish to recall here that the identity of Europe is primarily Christian and cannot be considered without this legacy,” he said in his message to the<\/p>\n

December 29 – January 2 gathering. “The secularization of Europe here takes the form of a rejection of the God of history. Nonetheless, the mobilization of Christians throughout Europe is an important initiative recalling the Christian roots of this continent, its identity and its values.”<\/p>\n

Bartholomeos noted the emergence of “golden calves” marked by a tendency to sacrifice “justice, equality, and freedom on the altar of consumerism.” He said Europe should remember the part played by churches in its recent history, at a time when secularization was denying “the sacredness of the world, breaking the link that exists between God, man and creation.”<\/p>\n

The Patriarch said, “Europe has just commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event not possible without the mobilization of Christians.<\/p>\n

“From the non-violent demonstrations organized by the Protestant churches of Leipzig; to international efforts by the Pope of Rome, John Paul II, who kept on crying out ‘Do not fear’; through the mobilization of Orthodox churches inside and outside the Soviet bloc, the fall of the Berlin Wall is not only the end of a historical sequence or a purely political event; its greatness is ecumenical.”<\/p>\n

A Taiz\u00e9 Community statement said that more than 30,000 young Europeans turned out for meeting, the 32nd since 1978. They were accommodated at 150 Roman Catholic parishes in Poland’s Wielkopolska region.<\/p>\n

Taiz\u00e9’s German prior, Brother Alois Loser, urged participants, who were most numerous from Poland, Germany, France, and Ukraine, to show solidarity with persecuted Christians in China. There the Taiz\u00e9 Community is distributing one million Bibles, he said. He also called on participants to work for “changes” in social structures as well as for greater justice in the world’s economic and financial system.<\/p>\n

The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in his message to the gathering said humanity had been “defaced and injured by false ideas of wealth, by false ideas of security, by false ideas of freedom.”<\/p>\n

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I, for his part, said Europe’s future will depend on young people’s readiness to promote “justice, Christian morality, and the idea of the common good.”<\/p>\n

At the same time, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the meeting’s emphasis on social issues, and called for “collective action to change the world for the better.”<\/p>\n

The Poznan meeting was the fourth such Taiz\u00e9 gathering organized in predominantly Catholic Poland, and will be followed in December by a meeting
\nin Rotterdam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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