4 - 2001

Churches in Europe

What the Churches Can Do for Europe

A commentary on the Charta Oecumenica

by Götz Planer-Friedrich

The signing of the Charta Oecumenica has brought up again, the question of the ecumenical movement’s future in Europe. How can the European churches together convincingly advocate their concerns and visions to a secularised continent?

Twelve years ago in Basel, for the first time in history, delegates from all the Christian confessions in Europe met together. This European Ecumenical Assembly was inspired by just that metaphor of a "common European home” which the then Soviet General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, had introduced into the political debate.

In view of the continuing ideological and military confrontation which at that time divided Europe, this talk of a common European home was a sign of hope which aroused enthusiasm among Christians and others, and pushed old disagreements into the background.

This euphoria has now died away, not only in politics, but also in the churches. The walls did fall, and people can indeed move around, right across the continent. But in doing so, many discover more what makes us different from each other than what we have in common. This is also the experience of all those who are continuing undaunted in their commitment to the ecumenical movement. In Strasbourg recently, as a Charta Oecumenica has been signed by representatives of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Council of (Roman Catholic) European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), the commentaries sounded very different from those that were heard in 1989 about Basel. This is just a statement of purpose Ð it is not legally binding, they said. And Reinhard Frieling’s remark, that it is a new beginning rather than a breakthrough, was interpreted as resignation in the face of obstacles which are impossible to overcome in European ecumenical relations.

What actually governs such evaluations of an ecumenical initiative? All the ecumenical agreements in modern times have only had the force of obligations to the extent that Christians and churches have upheld them and taken them into account in their own decision-making. Setbacks and disappointments are inevitable in terms of the often more than positive formulation of the texts. Even the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which was ratified in Augsburg by high-ranking Catholic and Lutheran representatives with great resonance in the media, has not had any immediate effect on the cooperation between the two parties who signed it.

But this cannot be allowed to be the last word. "Europe needs the reconciliation of the churches,” said theology professor Elisabeth Parmentier in her sermon during the ecumenical meeting in Strasbourg, "in order to care for the wounds of its peoples!” She called the Charta a road map which is common to all, enabling them to get their bearings and to find the way. The map does not tell them when and where they will arrive at the goal. Nevertheless it is becoming clear to increasing numbers of Christians that the churches can only successfully represent their "concerns and visions ... vis-ˆ-vis the secular European institutions”, as it says in the Charta, when they do it together.

Perhaps the pressure of the economic and political growing together of Europe must become still greater, before the church hierarchies realise how anachronistic it is to try to exclude other confessions and insist on a special status under church law. Still, every step forward that European Christians have already taken, in the ecumenical landscape, gives them a head start.

This commentary appeared in the Protestant monthly Zeitzeichen (Signs of the Times), No. 6/2001. The author is an editor of this magazine, and has for years been one of the best-known ecumenical journalists in Germany.