wfn.org | SECOND EUROPEAN ECUMENICAL ASSEMBLY - GRAZ AUSTRIA - JUNE 97

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

Title:SECOND EUROPEAN ECUMENICAL ASSEMBLY - GRAZ AUSTRIA - JUNE 97
June 26, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

1271 ACC

(ACNS)SECOND EUROPEAN ECUMENICAL ASSEMBLY - GRAZ AUSTRIA - JUNE 97

Introductory Speech by the President of the Conference of European
Churches, The Very Reverend John Arnold, Church of England

1   Welcome and Introduction

It is a great pleasure and privilege for me to welcome you, together
with Cardinal Vik, to this Second European Ecumenical Assembly and to
thank all who have made this Assembly possible - in the Council of
Catholic Bishops' Conferences for Europe, in the conference of European
Churches, in the member churches and Bishops' conferences, in associated
organisations, in movements and religious orders and especially our
hosts here in Graz, in Styria and in Austria.

We have come together as representative members of the people of God
from all corners of Europe to be challenged by the theme which the
people themselves have chosen 'Reconciliation  - Gift of God and source
of new life.'  It is clear that we Europeans long for reconciliation and
with food reason.

For we are fast approaching the end of the last century of the second
millennium, this twentieth century of the christian era which has been
the most violent and destructive century in human history in terms of
damage done both to God's image in men, women and children, and also to
God's world, our environment and earthly home.  Yet we know that the
church of Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God with
primacy over all created things (Col 1.15), this church is called to
stand as godmother at the cradle of the new millennium and to bring a
blessing not a curse.  The last thing we want for our churches, our
nations, our continent and the whole wide world is that they should
prick their fingers again on the weapons of war, so that blood flows and
moral consciousness in all its God-given beauty falls asleep, as it has
done so often in Europe in the past.  We may well ask what lessons can
be learned from those past years, which can now be implemented, so that
the first years of the new millennium may be truly years AD, not of Mars
or Mammon, but of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the challenge we face
this week.

If our Assembly had as a title only the word 'Reconciliation' we might
be tempted to despair in the face of that challenge.  But it also has a
sub-title: 'Gift of God and Source of New Life'.  Here is a basis for
hope, grounded in theology, just as our continuing experience and
remembrance of the First European Ecumenical Assembly in Basel 1989 is a
basis for hope, grounded in recent history.

2   From Basel to Graz

The background to Basel was the widespread apprehension that the life
which humankind had been living on earth for the past generation was
heading for catastrophic crisis or rather for three interlocking crises
in the fields of peace, justice and the ecology.  Will we survive, will
the earth sustain life in the third millennium of the christian era,
will that life be worth living for millions?  These were the questions. 
There was an apocalyptic feel to the preparatory phase of Basel.

But is was accompanied by a highly specific sense of hope, especially
but not only in central and eastern Europe, for a liberation which would
not necessarily be an exodus; it might be a transformation.  Many of the
hopes expressed or at least experienced in Basel were fulfilled and many
of our prayers were answered.  Many were not.

For if our common European home has been swept clean of one spirit, it
has proved to be open to seven lesser but even more wicked spirits,
which have rushed in to fill the partial vacuum - nihilism and despair,
greed, envy, malice and both an egotistic individualism and demonic
forms of nationalism, those twin children of 19th century romanticism
which are now reflected back to us in terrifying forms as in a
distorting mirror.  As the tide of Marxist-Leninist hegemony went under
the sea of common misery; and hot war returned to Europe for the first
time since the 1940's.  Yet as recently as 1989 the churches had said
together in Basel: 'There are no situations in our countries or on our
continent in which violence is required or justified.' (Final Document,
para 61)

If the atmosphere in Graz now is less anxious in its fears, it is also
more cautious in its hopes.  The threat of atomic war has receded; the
possibility of other forms of armed conflict has increased.  Private
wealth has burgeoned; social welfare systems have declined and the lot
of the poor has worsened.  Freedom of travel is universal in theory; in
practice an economic barrier, a new iron curtain, has been raised, just
when the political one has been lowered.

So it is a bold step, perhaps even a provocation, to choose for our
theme 'Reconciliation'; but it is a necessary step for us.  If Europe is
not yet reconciled, either within itself or with the rest of the world,
neither are our churches, either with each other or within themselves. 
The very structures which enable us to come together to speak of
reconciliation prevent us from taking communion together as sign and
source of reconciliation.  I trust that they will not prevent us from
making bold recommendations for common action by the churches n matters
where we can work together for the common good and, as it says in the
letter of James, act on the message (James 1.22).  I trust, too, that
our frustrations may spur us on to seek that unity which is God's gift
and will for His church and for His world.  The agenda of Basel lies
behind us, the agenda of Graz lies ahead.

3   Conclusion

In the scriptures, as in the sacraments, the operative agent of
reconciliation is always God himself.  In one notable passage St Paul
speak of 'God in Christ reconciling the world to himself' (2 Cor 5.19).
Reconciliation is typically a divine action and a trinitarian initiative
before it becomes a ministry entrusted to others including ourselves. 
That is why it can be described as a source of new life, as a never
failing spring of fresh water, welling up to give life which has the
quality of eternity about it (John 4.14).  We have come to Graz in order
to meet one another and in that encounter to find the Spirit of God
meeting our human spirit, assuring us that we are children of God
(Romans 8.16).  We have come not as to a spa but as to an oasis, in
order to drink deeply of this water of life and to go on our way
refreshed.