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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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Courtesy of the German Initiative for the Middle East (DINO) September 3, 2018
The appearance of Patriarch Gregorios III was greeted with joy: he was guest of honour at the DINO panel discussion in Münster, which, inspired by the exhibition Peace - from Antiquity to the Present Day, dealt with the question: “…and in Future? In the Middle East, too?"
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Christian Presence, Peace and Living Together in the Middle East
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good day!
To all of you dear people, greetings from the East, birthplace of religions, especially in the Holy Land, of which Pope Saint John Paul II said, "The Holy Land is the home of all Christians, because it is the home of Jesus and Mary." It is the home of every man, as Psalm 86 (LXX) says of Jerusalem, "A man shall say, Sion is my mother."
God has established the heavenly Jerusalem as the home of all people. Therefore, the earthly Jerusalem must not be bound to a person or a people, for Jerusalem is the mother of us all. I consider Jerusalem, where I served as bishop for twenty-six years, as the capital of our faith, whether we are Jews, Christians or Muslims. That is its future and task. This is the future and mission of the Middle East and all its inhabitants - Jews, Christians, Muslims – who have been living together for thousands of years.
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Photo: courtesy of Böblinger Bote
“The most important task is making terrorists into human beings again”
Renningen, Germany 11 September 2018
The visit of Patriarch Emeritus Gregorios III to Renningen came as a complete surprise. He was able to tell us something about current events in Syria today. It seems as though the struggle against so-called Islamic State is drawing to an end. What the country needs is not a military victory on the part of the Russians or the Americans, but readiness for reconciliation. “People who are not ready for reconciliation have no place in this country. We just can’t go on living in a state of war,” said the patriarch.
His main concern is with those who want to return to their ruined homes. Many are still undecided, as the patriarch reported, but the majority would like to go back. He is particularly concerned with Daraya, to which some fifty families comprising some six hundred persons are about to return: they need help.
It is also important for the sixty-bed hospital in Khabab, some forty miles from Damascus, to be completed. For this, furnishings and beds are required.
The most important task, according to the patriarch, is to make the terrorists human again, and do away with their hatred and enmity, in order to reintroduce peace to the country.
Renningen’s Catholic priest, Father Franz Pitzal has pledged support to the patriarch and even given a small contribution towards the reconstruction.
The patriarch, who also used to have responsibility for Jerusalem, bestowed on Father Pitzal the patriarchal Cross of Jerusalem, and, which is much more important for an orthodox Church, an antimension too. That is an altar-cloth, which in the Eastern rite acts as a reliquary cover, similar to the way relics are placed below the altar in catholic Churches.
In Renningen city centre, the patriarch noted enthusiastically the capital letter H standing for the one hundred and one countries, including Syria, to which Renningen sends help. He was also very interested in the Way of the Cross, which Father Pitzal has created for the Renninger Church and which connects current developments with the Passion of Christ.
See also Kreiszeitung: https://www.krzbb.de/krz_51_111588031-13-_Wichtigste-Aufgabe-aus-Terroristen-wieder-Menschen-machen.html
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24 September 1918 - 22 September 2018
Patriarch Emeritus Gregorios III was happy to participate in the abbey’s celebrations. In the morning, a solemn mass had been celebrated by Bishop Stefan Oster in the basilica, after which followed a concert in the upper church, with speeches from the abbot, Marianus Bieber, the state-minister Bernd Sibler and the district councillor, Christian Bernreiter. In the afternoon, His Beatitude presided at Byzantine Vespers in the St Nicholas Church. The whole occasion offered a good opportunity for him to visit the abbey and join in the festivities.
He brought the monks greetings from the Holy Land, and from the countries suffering from war, from Palestine with its seventy-year long conflict, from Iraq, and from Syria, now in its eighth year of crisis.
He writes, “My presence was a reminder of my predecessor, Maximos IV’s visiting Niederaltaich during the International Eucharistic Conference in Munich (1960), and later, on the occasion of the Second Vatican Council, together with some bishops of the Melkite Church.
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By Sean Salai, S.J. - America Magazine
Bishop Milan Lach, S.J., is the fifth Byzantine Catholic ordinary of the Ruthenian Eparchy of Parma, covering several Midwestern U.S. states. Enthroned as bishop on June 30 at his cathedral in Ohio, the 44-year-old Jesuit (an ethnic Ruthenian from Slovakia) is now the youngest Catholic bishop in North America.
Born 1973 in then-Czechoslovakia, Bishop Lach was ordained a priest in 2001. Before Pope Francis sent him to the United States to replace retired Bishop John Kudrick, he served as an auxiliary bishop of Byzantine Catholics in Presov, Slovakia.