In Zagreb last annual meeting of Eastern Rite Catholic Bishops

Saturday, 24 November 2012, 14:19

Yesterday evening in the Croatian capital, 40 bishops representing the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches in Europe began their annual meeting with the celebration of a Latin Rite Mass presided over by Cardinal Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb. “In this way”, said Mgr Nikola Kekić, Bishop of Križevci, who is hosting the meeting, “we want to testify to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, with the Pope of Rome at its head”.

In his homily, Cardinal Bozanic recalled how “today’s situation, characterised by new ideological expressions...calls for new forms of radical witness”. In the Year of Faith, he said, “we are called to renew the gifts we have received and which have strengthened us in following Christ”.

To underline the bond which unites Croatia with the other Eastern traditions of Europe, ancient Croatian-Glagolithic, a form of old Croatian akin to the oldest Slav Croatian alphabet of the missionary brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius, who in the course of the 9^th century converted many Slav peoples, was used for the central part of the Mass.

This year’s meeting is taking part in Croatia on the occasion of the 400^th anniversary of the Union of the Croatian Greek-Catholic Church with Rome.

This morning, after welcomes from Mgr Kekić, who focussed on the history of the Croatian Greek-Catholic Church, and the Apostolic Nuncio to Croatia, Mgr Alessandro D’Errico, a message from Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and CCEE President, was read to participants. In the message, the CCEE President recalled that “in Europe today our fellow citizens, even if they are not always fully aware of it, feel greatly the need for God, for spiritual values and for a new conception of life which does not look just at material goods”. For the CCEE President, European citizens “therefore need to know confessors of the faith and people who do not separate faith from daily life”.

Today and tomorrow, the meeting is set to include interventions from the Bishop with responsibility for Byzantine Rite Catholics in Greece, Mgr Dimitrios Salachas; from His Beatitude Sviatoslav Schevchuk, leader of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church; and from Mgr Cyril Vasil’, Secretary of the Holy See’s Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

During the meeting, there will also be an exchange of information about the activities launched by the Eastern Rite Catholic bishops for the Year of Faith and a report on the recent Synod of Bishops on the New Evenagelisation from Mgr Virgil Bercea, Bishop of Oradea-Mare.