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Pope gathers church leaders for ecumenical prayer for peace

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Pope Francis leads an ecumenical prayer gathering in Bari July 7, 2018. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Pope Francis leads an ecumenical prayer gathering in Bari July 7, 2018. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

By Elena Dini

BARI, Italy – Pope Francis invited leaders of the Christian churches in the Middle East at the Basilica of St. Nicholas in the southern Italian city of Bari July 7, for a day of reflection, discussion and prayer for peace for the Middle East, so afflicted with conflict, violence and war.

St. Nicholas, after whom the basilica was named and whose remains are buried there, was a Byzantine bishop, whose veneration still today bridges Eastern and Western Christians.

Pope Francis said the ecumenical meeting was an opportunity for church leaders to express their closeness to their people who are “living in situations of great suffering” in the Middle East.

“A Middle East without Christians would not be the Middle East,” he said at the start of the day. 

He also reminded everyone of the call to unity. “We have already lit, before St. Nicholas, the ‘one-flame lamp,’ a symbol of the one church. Today, as one, we want to kindle a flame of hope,” he said.

The church leaders held closed-door discussions, sitting at a round table, a symbol of the equality and collegiality among churches. After the talks, Pope Francis said: “Encouraged by one another, we have engaged in fraternal dialogue. It has been a sign of our need to pursue encounter and unity without being afraid of our differences.” 

“We commit ourselves to walking, praying and working together, in the hope that the art of encounter will prevail over strategies of conflict,” he said.

In his address at the conclusion of the dialogue, Pope Francis sent a message to all Christians, warning them about the temptation of “worldly attitudes” and of “concern for power and profit, for quick and convenient solutions.” He also reminded everyone that the Good News of Jesus “has won over human hearts down the centuries because it is bound not to the powers of this world, but to the unarmed power of the cross.” 

He sent a message to the people and political leaders in the Middle East: “May every community be protected, not simply the majority.”  

“Christians, too, are, and ought to be, full citizens enjoying equal rights,” he said. 

“You cannot speak of peace while you are secretly racing to stockpile new arms,” he continued. “This is a most serious responsibility weighing on the conscience of nations, especially the most powerful.”

Pope Francis mentioned war-torn Syria and Jerusalem in particular. The latter he referred to as the “holy city beloved of God and wounded by men, for which the Lord continues to weep.”

At the end of the day, as a sign of hope and peace, children gathered on the esplanade of the basilica, in front of the various church leaders, and released doves. 

“May our hearts remain united and turned to heaven, as in the days of the Flood (cf. Gen 8:11), in expectation of a fresh twig of hope. And may the Middle East no longer be an ark of war lying between continents, but an ark of peace that welcomes peoples of different backgrounds and beliefs,” the pope said.

After the prayer meeting, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, director of foreign relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, told SIR that the closed-door discussion among church leaders “was wholehearted, sincere.” 

“The representatives of Churches in the Middle East shared their hopes, their sorrows, their concerns, and we jointly examined what can be done to solve the problems afflicting the Middle East,” he said.

Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad, recounted how the people on the roadside waved and shouted, “unity, unity, unity,” at the bus of bishops headed to the prayer site.

“For a moment I saw in that small open bus the image of the ship of the church, which travels towards the goal everyone desires: unity,” he said.

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