Press release from The Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta
Romania’s Embassy to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta on Thursday organized a conference called ‘Europe: Its Christian roots. Its two lungs’.
Hosted by the Accademia di Romania in Rome, the event took place under the patronage of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) and was moderated by Vatican journalist Andrea Gagliarducci.
The special guests, His Eminence Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President Emeritus of the CCEE, and His Grace Bishop Silouan of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy proposed to a large audience a reflection on the condition of the European, who though is faced with the many challenges, also feels the need for unity, for Europe to breathe with both its lungs, in the Eastern and in the West.
From the Western perspective, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco analyzed the complete and integral response that culture offers to the need for unity, belonging, respect, but also the importance of worship, of the relationship with transcendence, in the generation of culture.
“Culture becomes deficient and dehumanizing when it does not recognize the importance of worship,” Cardinal Bagnasco pointed out, emphasizing the fundamental and founding links between culture and Christianity.
His Grace Bishop Silouan evoked the importance of roots and belonging in the current unprecedented social dynamic. Identity, cultural and Christian aspects, understood and shared, can help in metabolizing the richness of “the spiritual and intangible heritage that every individual carries with him, regardless of where he or she lives”.
For His Grace Siluan, the encounter between East and West, offers an opportunity to rediscover one’s own identity, but also to live concretely coexistence with one’s neighbor, for mutual benefit. “The encounter with a reality that is not your own makes you much more fruitful and productive,” His Grace observed, offering the examples of life of St. John Cassian or St. Cuv. Dionysius the Exiguous.
At the opening of the conference, Romania’s Ambassador to the Holy See, George Bologan, highlighted the dynamics that made the event a timely one.
“The diminishing of the sense of community and belonging weakens a Union that needs not only to breathe fully with its two lungs, but also to have a heart. What acts as a catalyst for the European heart is identity. An identity made up of cultural, spiritual and national differences. The task and challenge that we, European citizens, face is to create a collective consciousness, based on the full realization of the importance of a common European homeland, as Alcide De Gasperi said.”
Institutional messages were also sent by Mons. Flavio Pace, Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Msgr. Antonio Ammirati, Secretary General of the CCEE, His Grace Virgil Bercea, Greek-Catholic Bishop of Oradea, Prof. Dr. Rudolf Dinu, Director of the Accademia di Romania.
