MESSAGE OF HIS BEATITUDE PETROS VII POPE AND PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA AND ALL AFRICA FOR THE MAGAZINE OF THE MECC

The Middle East Council of Churches which was founded and operates in the vital area of the Middle East, comprise a significant opportunity for the meeting and co-operation of people and Churches, with the aim of a common benefit for the united Church and all her faithful children, as well as all the inhabitants of the wider area.

The Church of Christ since its inception has preordained itself through total unity in its internal conscience, theology and life, despite whichever differentiations, which are the result of historic occurrences and external influences. The Church ought to remain faithful to the Tradition which she received from her Holy Founder and His Apostles with the aim of contributing to the formation of the salvific conditions of the transfiguration of the world.

In this sense, we are called on today to reconstruct the Body of Jesus which has been wounded by the internal differentiations, in order that, through vision and a sense of the historic conditions, the collective effort of all church leaders and the faithful can be coordinated. Therefore, the common vision of the four Christian families which make up the Council, while it contributes to the internal unity of the Churches-members of every family, strengthens the common voice of Christians in the area in which they operate.

This decisive communication and communication gives the message of Christian love and co-existence, as works done for people and societies comprise the central proceedings through which the basic pivot of responsibility is expressed to the flock of each Church and the rest of the inhabitants of the wider surroundings.

Consequently, the spiritual reestablishment of strengths, traditions, historic presuppositions, as well as common visions, make the undertaking of common activities active, while the God of love and peace is served in the persons of the faithful citizens of the areas of the Middle East who hope for the solution to their dramatic problems through the contribution of their ecclesiastical leaders.

Now is the time for co-operation and the common responsibility of all! Now is the time for spiritual witness to our close and far-off brothers! Now is the opportunity to develop the past, through the formation of the present, but most especially of the future.

(Translation from the Greek Text)    

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Updated 25/06/04