By Laura Ieraci
ROME — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople urged Christians to beware indifference and to nurture an openness to dialogue during an ecumenical prayer service that he led at the Basilica of the Twelve Holy Apostles May 23.
Student residents, visiting scholars and staff of The Lay Centre attended the prayer service; it was also the first time The Lay Centre participated at an event with the ecumenical patriarch. Several residents at The Lay Centre belong to Orthodox churches led by Patriarch Bartholomew.
“Even in so-called ‘Christian’ societies there is a new martyrdom, the result of a lack of amazement, which is the martyrdom of the indifference of a post-religious society, of spiritual aridity,” he said in his reflection during a prayer service.
He asked those gathered: “Are we still able to be amazed by the call of the Lord for each one of us, by the things of God, by the fragility of man, by the uniqueness and importance of every human being?”
“Most of the Apostles suffered a bloody martyrdom,” he said, and Christians in many areas in the world are still victims of martyrdom due to “fundamentalist arrogance” and “a lack of relationship, communion and... love.”
During the service, he venerated the relics of the Apostles Philip and James the Lesser, which are reserved in the basilica. He also prayed before their tombs. He said relics of St. Philip were once housed in a basilica in Constantinople, second in size only to Hagia Sophia, but it was destroyed in the seventh century.
Turning his argument to ecumenism, he said “our churches yearn for full communion, in the time that God wills.”
“Relationship and communion allow us to walk together ... to tell the world today, afflicted by terrible injustices, religious, economic and social fundamentalism, and senseless exploitation of natural resources in favor of a few and at the expense of many, that there is hope.”
In an effort to follow the Apostles in their witness “we have come from the Eastern Church to be amazed by the Western Church,” he said.
“If we meet, our relationship takes on a fullness. We can speak, we can dialogue without turning inward with attitudes that are defensive or, worse, closed and suspicious, but also without taking anything away from our awareness of and fidelity to our church,” he said.
At the end of the prayer service, he processed to an image of the Mother of God, which he venerated, and led the congregation in praying the Hail Mary.
The patriarch was in Rome for an international conference of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, which promotes the teaching of St. John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical on social justice.
Prior to the conference, he met with Pope Francis May 26. According to Catholic News Service, the two spiritual leaders called on Christians to collaborate to build a culture of solidarity amid growing economic inequality and lack of respect for the human dignity of the poor and migrants.
Caption: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople venerates the relics of the Apostles Philip and James at the Basilica of the Twelve Holy Apostles May 23. (Photos: Laura Ieraci)
