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Conference ‘Give a Soul to Europe. Mission and Responsibility of the Churches’ completes its work in Vienna

6.05.2006 · Архив 2005-2009, События  

An International Conference ‘Give a Soul to Europe. Mission and Responsibility of the Churches’ completed its work in Vienna on 5 May 2006. The Conference was organized by the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations and the Pontifical Council for Culture with support of the Catholic Foundation ‘Pro Oriente’ based in Austria.

Deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations (DECR) archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture Bernard Ardura summed up the Conference at its last session. They noted the concurrence of opinions of the Orthodox and Catholic sides on almost all problems under discussion. The main ones were religious and moral state of the contemporary European society and common tasks of the Christians in bringing Europe back to its traditional spiritual roots.

The participants in the Conference addressed their message to the believers of the Local Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, representatives of other religious traditions, and political and pubic figures of the European countries.

The Moscow Patriarchate DECR Chairman Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad and President of the Pontifical Councils for Culture and Interreligious Dialogue Cardinal Paul Poupard addressed the participants with final words. The hierarchs thanked the members of the Orthodox and Catholic delegations for the atmosphere of dialogue and unanimity during the conference and outlined the ways for cooperation in the future. Metropolitan Kirill proposed common discussion of the dialogue of the Churches with secular society, as well as the problems of family values, morals and bioethics. Cardinal Paul Poupard invited representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church to take part in the next meeting of the Pontifical Council for Culture.