 On Friday, June 21, the Community of Sant'Egidio of Buenos Aires celebrated an ecumenical prayer presided over by the Metropolitan of the Syrian-Orthodox Church, mgr. Chrysostom Youhanna Ghassali, for the release of the Syrian bishops kidnapped two months ago: Mar Gregorios Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi.
The prayer was preceded by a lecture on the origins of the church in Syria and its history.
The Metropolitan spoke about the origins of the Aramaic and Syriac languages, about the devotion of the Orthodox Church to Mary and the saints. He finished by mentioning the current situation, talking with pain about his city, Aleppo, which for centuries was the city par excellence of coexistence between the different religious communities. A centuries-old tradition of dialogue and encounter, which has made the city prosperous also under the economic and cultural profile, but it has been broken by the war.
 Within the scope of its commitment to ecumenism and dialogue between religions, the Community of Sant'Egidio of Buenos Aires has been careful, over the years, to establish a special relationship with the Jewish community. This has allowed to reach, on the
24 June, the signing of an agreement of mutual cooperation with the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust, with which there has been a long friendship that has deepened with the knowledge of the testimonies by the Shoah survivors who reside in Argentina. The agreement will enable young people to visit the Holocaust Museum, lectures in schools and to publish books and articles to spread awareness of the tragedy of the Shoah, especially among the young generations.
|
