Metropolitan Emmanuel of France spoke at the two-day conference of the European Council of Churches, “The Hope of Communion: From 1920 to 2020.”
The Metropolitan of France has previously been vice-president and president of the European Council of Churches.
Among other things, the Metropolitan in his speech in English stressed: “Christianity was struck by the barbarity of the war. The Orthodox world was particularly exposed to this outburst of hatred, while southeastern Europe had not yet completed its transformation into nation-states. The Communist Revolution of 1917 announced a period of persecution against Christianity that modern human history had never seen before.
The Greek-Turkish war (1919-1922) prepared the ground for the “great catastrophe” with the population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
However, in the midst of these riots and outrageous violence, the issuance of the 1920 Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical came as a sign of hope, resilience and response to the challenges and opportunities of a different era a century ago, an era both near us and far from us.
Today, a century later, we are called on to continue to think about the challenges and opportunities that Christianity must face to maintain its voice in a world influenced by postmodernism, secularization, and the transformation of the very concept of relationship as implementation of communion […].
Dialogue helps fight prejudice. Dialogue builds bridges between Churches and strengthens the desire and quest for unity and communion.”