Interconfessional Seminar on "The Common Date of Easter"

  On the 15th of May, 2009, the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University organized an international, inter-confessional seminar on the topic, “The Common Date of Easter is Possible: The Aleppo Consensus of 1997”.
The seminar was organized within the framework of the Master’s degree program of Ecumenical Studies of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies with the participation Rev. Dagmar Heller (Pastor of the Evangelical Church of Germany), professor of the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey and representative of the commission Faith and Order of World Council Churches in Geneva; Fr. Dr. Milan Zust SJ (Catholic Church), representative Pontifical Council for the Promoting of Christian Unity (Vatican); and Dr. Kostjantyn Sigov, director of the Center of St. Clement Center in Kyiv, and representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Walter Cardinal Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promoting of Christian Unity and Metropolitan Antony Antony Scharba of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (USA – Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) sent letters of blessing to the participants of the seminar. The seminar also gathered the representatives of the main Christian Churches of L’viv: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates), Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, and Protestant and Evangelical Churches.
The participants of the seminar supported the consensus given in Aleppo in 1997 during the meeting organized by the World Council of Churches which proposed to calculate the common date for the celebration of Easter. The participants of the seminar also supported the proposition to promote the information about this consensus and organize more meetings on the topic within universities, parishes, and the mass media with the aim of creating an atmosphere of trust among Christians who belong to different confessions and to promote the appearance of the fruits of ecumenical dialogue.