Electoral ecumenism

The President of Romania Traian Basescu seems to be going on with his typical populism in search for the clergy's support. He is taking the third Reunion of Christian Churches taking place in Sibiu, the European City of Culture in 2007, as an opportunity.
Yesterday morning he participated at the prayer preceding the first session of this third European Ecumenical Assembly. The first prayer attended by all the Christians these days in Sibiu had taken place Tuesday evening in the City Square, where the President had spent just a few minutes, taking the opportunity to see to his hobby: talk to the crowd. (...)
In the opening of yesterday's session the attendants kept silent for a few minutes to commemorate the recently deceased Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, a great European personality in the world of Christians. Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, a spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians all over the world, outlined the historical importance of the ongoing event in the sermon he delivered in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Sibiu last Tuesday and he congratulated the Romanian Orthodox Church, the local Church and the city.
Spiritual demagogy
In yesterday's speech President Basescu described the Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu as a token of faiths' solidarity and one more hope for unity, outlining Romania was privileged to house an event vital to the Christian Churches' common action and to Romania's responsible approach to its fundamental spiritual values.
He argued: "Today it is more necessary than ever to shape room for common reflection on the role Churches can play in our societies, in keeping with their religious missions and in order to develop interChristian and interreligious dialogue, cultivate respect for humans' dignity and for the nature the faithful take for God's creation. I knew you started in Rome and continued in Wittenberg a pilgrimage making preparations for this assembly, meant to celebrate the diversity of traditions within European Christianity. The third European Ecumenical Assembly is taking place in Sibiu, a true model of collaboration of cultures and religious cults. It is the first time a country mostly Orthodox, a country that made preparations for today's event due to the historical visit that Pope John Paul II paid here in 1999. To all of us this is a token of solidarity between faiths and renewed hope for unity".

D.E.
Ziua Joi 6 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english