Press release at the conclusion

 

The official representatives of the Churches

A particular value on the ecumenical plane was represented by the official delegates of the Churches of East and West.

For the Catholic Church were present: bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the promotion of Christian unity, together with fr. Milan Zust, S.J., don Andrea Palmieri, and sr. Barbara Matrecano of the same department; archbishop Antonio Mennini, apostolic nuncio to the Russian Federation; cardinal Achille Silvestrini, former prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches; bishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for the International Eucharistic Congresses; bishop Mansueto Bianchi of Pistoia, president of the Commission for ecumenism of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. In the course of the conference several bishops of the Piedmont Bishops’ Conference also brought their greetings, among them is secretary, bishop Arrigo Miglio of Ivrea, bishop Luigi Bettazzi, retired bishop of Ivrea, bishop Gabriele Mana of Biella, and bishop Massimo Giustetti, retired bishop of Biella.

We list the official representatives of their Churches who participated in the conference. Feognost of Sergiev Posad led the delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate, composed also of bishop Feofilakt of Brjansk and Sevsk, hieromonk Tixon (Zimin), and father Aleksij Dikarev. The Orthodox Church of Greece was represented by metropolitans Ignatios of Dimitriados, Daniil of Kessariani, Vironas, and Hymettos, and by bishop Ioannis of Thermopyli.
In addition, in the Conference participated as official representatives of their Churches: metropolitan Serafim of Germany (Romanian Orthodox Church); metropolitan Grigorij of Veliko T?rnovo and bishop Kiprian of Trajanopol (Bulgarian Orthodox Church); bishop Volodymyr of Rovin’ky (Ukrainian Orthodox Church); Stefan of Turov and Mozyrsk (Belorussian Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Moscow); father Ruben Zargaryan (Armenian Apostolic Church), delegate of the catholikos of all the Armenians Karekin II; archimandrite Athenagoras (Fasiolo) (Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Malta); canon Hugh Wybrew, delegate of the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams; Tamara Grdzelidze, delegate of the World Council of Churches (Geneva). Finally, we note the presence of Anatolij Krasikov of Moscow, Spyridon Kontoyannis of the University of Athens, Pantelis Kalaitzidis of Volos, Gelian M. Proxorov of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.

The conference program was prepared in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches by a scientific committee presided by Enzo Bianchi and composed of fr. Hervé Legrand (Paris), fr. Michel van Parys (Chevetogne), Antonio Rigo (University of Venice), Roberto Salizzoni (Univeristy of Turin). The conference hoped to offer a space for fraternal encounter among the various Christian Churches, of communion and sharing of their multiform spiritual traditions, and this was borne out by the extraordinary participations of numerous monks and nuns from Orthodox (Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Mount Sinai, Georgia, Armenia) and Catholic (Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary) monasteries. Coming together around a common listening to the Word and in fraternal communion, as br. Adalberto Mainardi noted in his Concluding Remarks, testifies thus that solitude and communion are in reality an art of loving, the art of concretely , daily living love within he monastic fraternity, but also and above all within the Church and among the Churches and in the totality of the human community.

At the end of the Conference the prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, after expressing his thanks, announced the dates of the next International Ecumenical Conference of Orthodox spirituality (7–10 September 2010) and a possible theme, “Scripture in the spiritual life according to the Orthodox tradition”.