PRESS RELEASE No.7

"Love unites churches, beyond diversity and division"; a dual Bible Study on St. Paul's hymn to love

Strasbourg, 21 April 2001 - The work of the Seventh European Ecumenical Encounter organised by the Conference of European Churches and the Council of European Bishops' Conferences continued today in Strasbourg. The famous "Hymn to love" from the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians was expounded this morning in a dual Bible study by Bishop Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter of the Lutheran Church in Germany and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor from England.

"The effort towards unity", said Bishop Wartenberg-Potter, who was installed as Bishop of Lübeck this month, "has been intense since the very beginning of the Church. The apostle Paul becomes an interpreter and supporter of this effort when he declares that faith, hope and above all love are healing instruments in face of every division". Paul, she said, was a great thinker and theologian, but also a man "who lived a life full of suffering and danger. This is challenging for many of us because in our work for unity there is a great deal of pain and frustration, and much less satisfaction. But in every conflict Paul is supported by the confidence that God has made him an instrument of grace and that God himself is working for the unity of the Church".

"Are we too convinced of our ecumenical mandate?", asked Bishop Wartenberg-Potter. "Are we really confident in the promise of God's love? The divisions within the Church of Corinth were no less than those which we experience today in Europe: ethnical, cultural and religious divisions. But Paul shows us that the path we must follow is not an individual one, but a common one. Paul was our predecessor in this journey towards unity, and we are called to follow in his footsteps".

A strong call for unity came also from Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, who underlined the need to come to a "conversion of our hearts and a change in our habits. We must have new eyes and new ears," he said, "if we really want to put into practice the love of which Paul was speaking."

"There are three enemies of ecumenism," he added, "against which we must energetically struggle". The first enemy is suspicion, which can be overcome "if we will continue to pray together, to meet and listen to each other". The second enemy is "inertia, as we talk a lot of ecumenism but our actions are not consequential. But the gift of unity appears in the concrete life of our towns, our villages, our families. This is where the Holy Spirit is at work, this is where we can experience small steps towards unity. The third enemy is impatience. We all have the desire to work for the visible unity of the churches, but we ought to remember that the journey towards unity is in the hands of grace. The Holy Spirit acts to do things which are impossible for us".