Izmir, shared church between Catholics and Orthodox a sign of fraternity
Patriarch Bartholomew and the Franciscan superior have signed an agreement to grant the Church of St Mary (Izmir) to the Orthodox free of charge. For the vicar of Istanbul, Bishop Palinuro, it is a "gesture of love" to a "sister" community and a further step on the "ecumenical path". The hope is to one day also reach "the sharing of the sacraments".
Istanbul (AsiaNews) - The "sharing of a church" in a "context" like the Turkish one is a "precious gift", because "it is not easy" to build new places of worship and to give an existing one "to a sister community like the Orthodox one is a gift of love".
The apostolic vicar of Istanbul, Msgr Massimiliano Palinuro, underlines to AsiaNews the value of the agreement reached on Holy Thursday at the Phanar in Constantinople between the superior of the Franciscan order Br Massimo Fusarelli and the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I.
It provides for the concession of use of the (Catholic) Church of St Mary in Izmir, dating back to the 17th century, to the Orthodox to meet the needs expressed by the city's Metropolitan. An agreement reached thanks to the common will of Pope Francis, the Franciscan friars and the Orthodox community: "The church," continued the prelate, "has been granted for free use, a gesture of great fraternity that shows how far the ecumenical path has progressed."
The Catholic community is very attached to St. Mary's Church, because it was the ancient cathedral of Izmir, which today sees the Christian presence flourish again in numerical terms, especially among the Orthodox, to the extent that the small church of Agia Fotinì is insufficient for the needs of worship.
Today in Turkey's third most important city after the capital Ankara and Istanbul, the economic and commercial heart of the country, there are about 2,000 Catholics, 17 priests and 12 churches out of a total population of over 4.2 million and about 6,000 mosques throughout the territory.
"The passage that we await with the greatest hope," explains Mgr Palinuro, "is that we will soon reach the sharing of the sacraments, full communion of the Eucharist," which must not only be "a point of arrival" but also an "element of encouragement" for the ecumenical journey.
In relations between Catholics and Orthodox, for a long time "it was insisted that the full communion of the sacraments should be reserved for the end of the journey", the vicar observed, once "all the doctrinal and juridical problems had been resolved".
Instead, "here in Turkey we are convinced that the necessary and indispensable step to smooth over the disciplinary and doctrinal stumbling blocks is precisely the full communion of the sacraments. Because,' he warns, 'it is in the Eucharist that communion is built, it is in prayer and in the common celebration of the sacraments that all the stumbling blocks that clumsy theological interpretations or different juridical traditions have been able to create are smoothed out'.
"We are really longing for the full communion of the sacraments, which had already occurred here in the past under the enlightened leadership of Patriarch Athenagoras," recalls the vicar of Istanbul, who has cultivated a personal relationship of esteem with Bartholomew over time, long before his appointment.
"We hope that as soon as possible," he adds, "the leaders of the Christian communities will be able to make courageous and prophetic gestures in this sense, because there is truly no reason for the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox to maintain limits to full communion in the sacraments".
The recent devastating earthquake that struck Turkey (and Syria) on 6 February is also reinforcing the cooperation between Churches.
"It was terrible," recalls Bishop Palinuro, "to see churches of all Christian denominations, synagogues, mosques destroyed. As often happens, in the worst moments, the best of human nature shines out: the solidarity that was seen between the various communities, and which continues to take place, was and is extraordinary'. The earthquake, he continued, has created damage that "will take decades to repair, so it will be necessary to continue to collaborate and help one another" putting aside "every difference and discrimination".
Finally, the Apostolic Vicar of Istanbul recounts the relationship with Patriarch Bartholomew that has grown over time. "This personal relationship is precious," he explains, "because true ecumenism is done not so much through conferences and theological declarations" but with "fraternal dialogue, in frequentation, in sharing moments of prayer and fraternity".
He concludes that there are weekly or fortnightly meetings with the Orthodox primate, his collaborators, and the metropolitans, during which "ideas, concerns, and projects are shared, and this certainly goes in the direction of relations increasingly marked by true fraternity".
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22/03/2017 18:20
