Reconciliation in Europe Group will held an ecumenical conference in Belarus

Representatives of the UGCC, UOC, Ukrainian Lutheran Church and Roman Catholic Church participated in the meeting from Ukraine.

With the blessing of His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Fr. Ihor Shaban, head of UGCC Commission on Interreligious and Interfaith relations represented UGCC.

The meeting started with drawing conclusions of “Reconciliation” group’s work in 2018, expressing gratitude to delegates from Ukraine for a successfully delivered ecumenical conference “Reconciliation Strategies. Role of Churches in Ukraine’, during which representatives of different confessions from Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Germany discussed opportunities and ways for reconciliation between Churches.

Following this, plans for 2019 were discussed, paying particular attention to a preparation of a future international conference in Belarus, delivering of what is going to be held in May of the current year with a topic “Church and local communities in the face of social challenges”.

Taking into account international level of the forthcoming conference, The Reconciliation in Europe Group visited mainrepresentative offices of Germany and Poland where they met with Mr. Peter Dettmar, ambassador of Germany in Belarus and Mr. Artur Michalski, ambassador of Poland in Belarus. They discussed form of future collaboration.

On the final day of the meeting, members of the Group visited Apostolic Visitator for the Greek Catholics of Belarus, the mitered Archimandrite Serhiy Hayek and congratulated him on the 70th anniversary of his birthday and the 45th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.

UGCC Commission on Interfaith and Interreligious Relations

Reference: The International Reconciliation Group in Europe was founded in 1974 on the initiative of the Evangelical Church of Germany and the Polish Ecumenical Council in order to promote reconciliation between the Polish and German peoples, relations between which have been significantly deteriorated as a result of the Second World War. In 1995, new members joined the Reconciliation Group: representatives of Ukraine and Belarus. Thus, the project "Reconciliation in Europe - the mission of Churches in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Germany" emerged.

From Ukraine, the Reconciliation Group includes representatives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine and the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine.