Ecumenical Patriarch Stresses Centrality of Liturgy

The revamped Byzantine Catholic Church in America website is up and running. It's a stunner - Bravo! Check out the site here, and don't forget to bookmark it; it's a keeper!

The excellently-designed news section includes remarks from Patriarch Bartholomaios I of Constantinople given to the Orientale Lumen Conference meeting in Fairfax, Virginia. A few highlights are given below.

Istanbul & Fairfax, VA - 18 May 2007 - At the opening session of the Second Orientale Lumen EuroEast Conference held last week in Istanbul, His All Holiness Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople, welcomed and addressed clergy and laity from several Orthodox and Catholic Churches, gathered from two continents and eight countries.

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In his remarks, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew applauded the work of the Conference, and said: “your own presence and participation … further confirms our belief that all of us, each from our own position in the Body of Christ, must reach out to our fellow-Christians in an effort to obey the will and fulfill the commandment of Our Lord, ‘that we [his disciples] may be one. (John 17:11)’”

The Patriarch emphasized the primacy of liturgy in the church: “It is in liturgy that all aspects of Church faith and spirituality, of Church life and practice, of pastoral ministry and canon law, derive their essential source and find their ultimate significance.”

The whole article may be found here.