Oikoumene
I have spent the past forty-eight hours at a pastoral congress in Sweden on ‘The Heart’s Discipleship’ organised by the journal Pilgrim, to which I am privileged to contribute as a columnist. There were over 300 participants from a broad spectrum: Lutheran, Free Church, Catholic, and Orthodox. Conferences and seminars were excellent; conversations were deep; liturgies were prayerful; the atmosphere was cordially hospitable. The fact that such an encounter is possible at a time when the wind has largely gone out of the sails of institutional ecumenism is significant. I am strengthened in a core conviction: the way to Christian unity, a Gospel imperative, must set out from personal encounters; it will proceed through friendship and mature through trust, which takes time to develop; its goal will be a deepening of life in Christ, the Truth, nothing less; its impetus will be the call to conversion; along the way shared silence will be at least as important as a multitude of words.
