The cardinal emphasized: Christ is the Savior of all mankind, the good news for all nations.

“Today, when we feel our culture is going through a deep crisis,” there is a need for in-depth knowledge, centers of Christian knowledge and faith like the monasteries of the Middle Ages. But we also need “courage and a missionary spirit” to “go and proclaim the saving news of Christ to people who represent completely different customs and cultures,” said Peter Erdő.

He also mentioned that in today’s world, it is especially important for Christians to be visible, perceptible to each other: to each other. He added that many theological issues have arisen during the ecumenical dialogue, but it is important to consider to whom “exactly what unity is what we are striving for”.

The cardinal expressed his hope that the Christian communities and churches would be increasingly clear signs to humanity in this regard as well.

In his sermon, Zoltán Balog, pastor of the Synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church, talks about: true common prayer points to “our joyful vulnerability.” That without the will of God, without the message of God, we will not use it, “if we have great social acceptance, if our institutional system is strengthened,” if everything seems to be in order. “Because it’s only okay if God speaks and we hear it together,” the Reformed bishop said.

Zoltán Balog, who returned home from his trip to Syria a few days ago, said that in the country that had been bled by the war, there were already signs of a resumption. Houses and churches are being rebuilt and shops are being opened. But a real restart requires more and more. Not only because what is rebuilt can be destroyed at any time, but also because the will to live is not a virtue or a guarantee in itself. You may want to live at the expense of the other, ”he added.

We must and can pray together for the renewal of life. There, in Syria, Lebanon and here in Hungary, in the Carpathian Basin. For persecuted Christians, this is more obvious, because common suffering and trials bring Christians together, he said.

In Hungary, it seems a little harder, because we can serve freely, we can teach almost a million children to the Christian faith in schools, our churches are being renewed, last September, at the International Eucharistic Congress, hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets and squares of Budapest with Christ. listed by the Reformed bishop.

“We can be free followers of Christ,” and even if there are dark clouds, even if there are those who want to squeeze the Christian faith back between the four walls of churches and family homes, in Hungary it is still free and good to be a Christian and a Christian, “he said.

He added that this is why it is more difficult to “strengthen our faith, our communities, not at the expense of the other Christian,” but together.

He recalled that it was good to speak together before Christmas for the sanctity of marriage, and also called the series of ecumenical marriage weeks in February every year.

Zoltán Balog also said about it: there is something that God will only answer if we ask and ask together. If we “ask together what we Hungarian Christians can do” for the nation, for the country. “How and how we can speak to families without listening to God’s order of creation but telling the truth in love,” he explained.

At the end of the service, the participants pray together for the persecuted Christians, The starting day of the joint program series of the Hungarian Catholic Episcopal Conference and the Ecumenical Council of the Churches of Hungary (MEÖT) is also the Sunday of prayer for persecuted Christians from 2018.

The leaders of the member churches of the MEÖT took part in the liturgical service.

The ceremony was attended by, among others, István Jakab, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Katalin Novák, Candidate of State, Tristan Azbej, Zoltán Lomnici, State Secretary for Assisting Christians Persecuted and Implementing the Hungary Helps Program .

The Ecumenical Week of Prayer has been held since 1908, and was attended for the first time only by members of the Anglican and Catholic Churches and was held only in Graymoor, USA. The program looks back on a tradition of about three decades in Hungary.

Opening: Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest (b) and Reformed Bishop Zoltán Balog at the opening of the Ecumenical Week of Prayer at the Lutheran Church in Deák Square. MTI / Balogh Zoltán