I. Under an ecumenical aspect, the year 2000 was a memorable year. 2000 years after Christ�s birth, the churches confessed their faith and celebrated together on several occasions. I think especially of the opening of the Holy Door at St. Paul outside the walls and the common remembrance of the witnesses of the 20th century at the Coliseum. Both events were prophetic ones, which gave rise to hope, just as the signing of the �Common declaration on the doctrine of justification� last year.

However, not only the year 2000, but also the year 2001 is an ecumenically memorable year. By chance, the calendar rendered it possible to celebrate the most important Christian feast, Easter, together. Unfortunately, up to now the churches had not been able to do so on their own. It is to be hoped that what was achieved by chance this year might soon be a self-evident practice.

Unfortunately, there were also setbacks and disappointments on all sides. Many Christians did expect more. For this reason, we want to make a sort of ecumenical examination of conscience and ask ourselves: Where are we ecumenically speaking at the beginning of this new millennium and where are we heading in the new millennium?

II. When we look back on the past century, which has come to an end, we have to say that it was a dark century. Two World Wars, two cruel dictatorships in Europe with millions of casualties and victims, and after the end of the Cold War an increasingly growing gap between poor and rich peoples, whereas in the rich Western countries we recognise a widespread indifference and an advancing secularisation.

However, in this dark century, there is also a source of light: the rising of an ecumenical movement. The separations between churches brought about so much pain for humanity, especially in Europe: wars, hostilities and alienation, way into the families. These separations divided Europe and we, Europeans, exported our disagreements to other continents such as Africa and Asia.

The divisions made Christianity not credible in the eyes of many. Some time ago, I was in South Africa and went to a Catholic parish, which was close to our place of conference, on Sunday. To my surprise I realised that there were churches of many different denominations in one and the same road: the Catholic church next to the Greek-Orthodox, on the opposite side the Anglican church, further down a Reformed Church and an independent African church. All of them in one and the same road! I was told that nowadays the churches lived in peaceful and friendly co-existence and that there were no disputes or competition. But what are non-christians to think? And how does this comply with Jesus Christ�s will?

Jesus Christ wanted one church. On the eve of his death, he prayed:� they may all be one, so that the world may believe�. Together we confess: �I believe in the one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church�. Frankly, we have to state: the divisions are against Jesus� will. They are a sin and for the world, they are a scandal. We cannot resign to this fact.

Today, the real parting line does not run between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians, but between those, who sincerely believe in God and Jesus Christ and try to live their faith, and those, who are indifferent towards the Christian faith or look for new doctrines of salvation.

It is a sign for the impact of the Holy Ghost in our time that all churches show repentance for the divisions and have a longing for unity in this century. After centuries of separations, delimitations, hostilities and mutual indifference, all churches have started to walk on the ecumenical road. There is no alternative to it.

III. In our country, Germany, the origin of ecumenism lies in the trenches of the Second World War and in the concentration camps during the Third Reich. In these places, while offering resistance to an inhuman and criminal regime, Catholic and Protestant Christians discovered their common grounds, which are by far greater than everything that separates them.

The break-through was the II. Vatican Council (1962-65). The first sentence of the decree about ecumenism is: �Helping to restore the unity of all Christians is one of the main objectives of the Holy Ecumenical Second Vatican Council�. Thereby the ecumenical concern became a priority for the church after the council. Repeatedly, Pope John Paul II. called this option an irreversible decision.

The crucial point was that the council no longer stated: The Catholic Church is the church of Jesus Christ, i.e. it was no longer said: The Catholic Church and the church of Jesus Christ are identical. The council defined the matter more carefully, it said: The church of Jesus Christ exists (subsistit) in the Catholic Church, i.e. it is actually being realized and is present in the Catholic Church, but outside of its visible structure there are also elements of the church of Christ, which in the case of the Oriental and Orthodox churches are even true churches. We call them sister churches. The decree on ecumenism even goes as far as to say: The Holy Ghost uses these churches and Christian communities as means for the salvation of their members. Outside the Catholic Church, there is salvation, too. There are Saints and Martyrs.

The development has not come to a standstill since the days of the council. Of course, such a process is not without difficulties and sometimes even resistances. They do not only exist within the Catholic church, but also elsewhere. Gaps, which have been existing for centuries cannot be closed from one day to the other; no church can deny its tradition. Faith is about convictions of conscience which cannot be changed like a shirt or a car.

However, the ecumenical process has continued. The most important result is � as Pope John Paul II. put it � the rediscovered brotherhood. Christians of the separated churches do no longer see each other as enemies or strangers; despite of all separations, which still persist, they have become friends.

Thus, in the meantime, a close cooperation has developed on the level of parishes and dioceses. On the level of the universal church, the Pontifical Council for Unity is in dialogue with 13 churches or denominational world councils. The contacts with others are informal. A �Joint Working Group� has been established with the World Council of Churches, which meets annually and does a good job. The secretaries of all denominational world families also meet every year to exchange their point of views.

Of course, the ecumenical work is not limited to official dialogue. Personal relationship is just as important or even more important, especially the meetings of the Holy Father with the Heads of other churches and ecclesiastical communities. Such visits and letters are more than expressions of diplomatic courtesy. These contacts have considerably re-established essential aspects of the communion within the church as it existed in the first centuries of christianity.

The communion within the church that exists today is already a real but not yet a complete one. It is not only based on a human feeling of affection. Its foundation is not only a generic humanism, but the common faith in Jesus Christ and the common baptism through which we are members of the one body of Christ. However, this deep, already existing communion is not a complete communion yet. This becomes evident in the fact that we do not approach the altar of the Lord together and do not celebrate together the eucharist, the sacrament of unity.

IV. Of what does complete unity consist? What is the aim of the ecumenical path? We agree that the goal cannot be a monolithic church, but unity in diversity. Unity is not to be confused with uniformity. Unity is necessary in the essential aspects: in the one faith, in the sacraments and in the mutually recognized ministries. However, there can be different expressions of the one and the same faith, different aspects can be stressed, different human traditions and habits can exist. Such a diversity is not a deficiency; rather it means richness and fullness; it is catholicism in the literal sense of the word.

Currently, there are, unfortunately, still differences which are not reconciled. All churches bear collective memories; memories about what �the others� did to them. The Orthodox still remember the crusades and the destruction of Constantinople (1204), the Lutherans remember the ban on Martin Luther, the oppression of Protestants in Catholic countries, the Catholics remember the Wars of Religion, the expropriation of churches. Opposite examples can, of course, always be mentioned; no one can say that he is innocent; we did not always treat each other in a Christian way. Many prejudices still persist. A �purification of memory� is required. Pope John Paul II. often was the first to give a good example. Especially on the first Sunday of lent in the year 2000, he asked for forgiveness of the sins against unity during an impressive liturgy.

The spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation allows to discuss existing dogmatic differences. The basic question of today is the question about the church. The similarities with the Orthodox Churches are very extensive. We have the same ancient proclamations of faith, the same sacraments, especially the eucharist, and the same episcopal constitution of the church. The problem is basically reduced to the questions of the ministry of Peter. The theological differences concerning the way the church is understood are much deeper in the relations with the Protestants. Here it is not only a matter of the ministry of Peter, but of the meaning of the ministry in general: about the relation between the general and particular priesthood; especially the episcopal ministry as apostolic succession is concerned as well as the sacramental structure of the church. The clarification of these questions will not be simple.

Pope John Paul II. made a courageous, even revolutionary step, in his Encycle �Ut unum sint� (1995). He invited us to enter into a fraternal dialogue on the future exertion of the ministry of Peter. Doing this, he started a broad discussion. Unfortunately, up to now the Orthodox Churches have not officially taken part in it. We are still looking forward to their answer and are awaiting it keenly.

I know of the resentments and anxieties which partly go back to bad experiences in the past. Why should we not take up the kind of communion which are familiar to us from the first centuries? Nowadays, as the word has become a �global village�, the ministry of Peter is far from being out of date. It gives the church an internal and an external unity, and at the same time independence and freedom from the states in which it resides. Therefore as catholics, we regard the ministry of Peter to be a gift and a blessing. The question is whether in the future it can be exerted in such a way to leave a certain autonomy to other church traditions, at the same time favouring their cohesion.

V. How should things go on? Firstly, they will go on. Ecumenism is a result achieved by the Holy Spirit. Who wants to stop it? Thus hope has been proclaimed. There is no alternative to Ecumenism. During the last decades many positive developments have taken place at all levels, so we cannot go back, and we do not intend to go back. I see four tasks for the immediate future:

1. We cannot allow what we have achieved so far to be covered in dust; we should make it our own and translate it into action in our daily lives. This is what theologians mean with reception. All churches lack this. In the meantime, consensus and convergence documents fill several volumes; but who knows them? The process of coming closer in ecumenism cannot only be a matter of theological dispute. The churches not only separated because of discussions, but also because of the way they lived; that is why they have to come together again by living together. �Ecumenism of truth and �Ecumenism of love� should become �Ecumenism of life�.

This implies: renouncing open or hidden proselytism, sharing information, taking into account the effects on other churches with every decision you make, doing everything together, what we can already do together today with a clear conscience, without asking too much of each other or putting one another under pressure.

*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$*$

Without offending our conscience, today we can do much more together than what we usually already do: common bible studies, common gathering of liturgical texts, common $$liturgy of the word$$, sharing of spiritual experience, better knowledge of common tradition as of existing differences, cooperation in theology, in mission, in cultural and in social witness, in the fields of development, of preservation of the creation, of mass media, and much more. Only if we succeed in re-establishing confidence that was lost in recent times, further steps will be possible.

2. We must give the present intermediate situation an institutional feature and a structure. This can principally be done through councils of churches and of christians. We have already had much good experience with this. Councils of churches are no super-church; they do not pretend from any church to lay down its own self-understanding. It is the responsibility of the single churches to continue the path of ecumenism. However, church councils are an important instrument and a forum of cooperation between the churches, and they are a good instrument for favouring unity.

3. During the intermediate period, two forms of ecumenism are necessary and strictly bound to each others: outbound ecumenism, which is achieved through ecumenical meetings, dialogue and cooperation, and inbound ecumenism, which is achieved through reforming and renewing the own church. There is no ecumenism without conversion an renewal. We have to characterize our own church in such a way, that it becomes attractive and $$inviting$$ for the others, and we have to realize within ourselves what others are legitimately expecting from us. Pope John Paul II called the ecumenical path an exchange of gifts. Thus, it is not a matter of shortcuts, nor of a unity at the lowest common denominator, but of a mutual enrichment. It is a matter of a unity in the one Lord Jesus Christ. The more we approach him, the more we get closer to each other.

4. Last but not least: the soul of the ecumenical movement is not spiritual ecumenism. We can not �make� the unity of the church. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Thus we need an ecumenism, whose strength does not lie in programs which consists out of a list of actions, but from the sources of the scriptures and the tradition. Therefore, the prayer for unity and personal sanctification are the heart of ecumenism.

What we have to do is not to develop utopian projects for the future, which are far from the reality. Let us give the Spirit of the Lord a chance. Therefore, instead of staring at what is impossible for the moment and being in pain for this reason, we should live the communio that already exists and do what is possible today. As we proceed step by step we may hope to find the path for a greater common future. From a human point of view, it might still be a long way. But I am deeply convinced that Gods Spirit is actively at work in our ecumenical �company�. He is faithful; one can rely on him. Nobody will be able to prevent him from leading his work to an end, how and when, this is his �business�. He is always likes to surprise us.

If, in the morning of November, 9th, 1989 someone had asked the citizens of Berlin, for how a long time the wall would still exist, most of them would have answered: we would be glad, if once our grandchildren could walk under the gate of Brandenburg again. In the evening of that memorable day Berlin and the world appeared in a totally different way. I am convinced that one day also we will rub our eyes and, being amazed and thankful we will state, what great things Gods Spirit did to us.