The Life and Thought of Louis Massignon (1883-1962): Comparative political and theological perspectives - Conference on Tuesday 27 November 2012

At the Centre for Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College, in the Marie-Eugenie Room. All are welcome

• Louis Massignon's influence on the teaching of Vatican II on Muslims and Islam: Christian Krokus, University of Scranton
• Louis Massignon: The Prophet of Dialogue of Civilizations: Fabio Petito, University of Sussex
• Responding to Islam as Priests, Mystics and Trailblazers: Louis Massignon, Kenneth Cragg, and Rowan Williams: Richard Sudworth, Heythrop College, University of London
• Louis Massignon, Olivier Clément, Thomas Merton: Authenticity, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue – a common bond, a common destiny: Stefanie Hugh Donovan, Heythrop
• Louis Massignon and Jerusalem: Political-Theology and the encounter Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Anthony O'Mahony, Heythrop College, University of London

Here is the message from Patriarch Gregorios:

Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate

Cairo

Prot. 523/2012R 18 November 2012

Centre for Eastern Christianity

Heythrop College, University of London                        

From His Beatitude Patriarch Gregorios III

Greetings for the Conference

27 November 2012

The Life and Thought of Louis Massignon (1883-1962): Comparative political and theological perspectives

 

From Egypt, (where I am today attending the enthronement of His Holiness, Pope Tawadros II of the Coptic Orthodox Church) and the very place where Louis Massignon exercised his mission as a Christian in love with Islam, by emphasizing the tradition of badaliyya or substitution, I am happy to send these greetings to your conference.

Here on 4 November our Archbishop George Bakar, Patriarchal Vicar of Egypt and Sudan, commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the repose of the Priest Louis Massignon († 31 October 1962) in the same church of Our Lady of Peace, where he had been ordained in 1950 by Bishop Boutros Kamel Medawar S.M.S.P., then Patriarchal Vicar of Maximos IV (Sayegh).

Here too lived Mary Kahil, an Egyptian Greek Catholic who had vowed with Massignon as early as 1934 to pray for Muslims and who devoted herself to Muslim women’s political and social causes.

Here too they launched, with Archimandrite Xavier Eid and others, Al Ikha ad-Dini (a still active Muslim-Christian Fraternity). Their influence reached the Second Vatican Council. Without them the Conciliar Document Nostra Aetate would not have seen the light of day in its definitive form with the well-known section on Islam, which now forms the basis for Catholic dialogue with Islam.

As Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, of Alexandria and Jerusalem, I am glad to recall that Louis Massignon’s ideas flourished in the ambiance of the Melkite Church in Egypt, which had become a second home to our people coming from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine to work and develop the country.

Thank you for inviting me to greet you at this celebration of Massignon’s life and work at Heythrop College in the University of London. We hope we may organise jointly with you in this Massignon jubilee year a similar conference at our Liqaa Center in Lebanon.

Massignon can be our guide towards better understanding with Muslims and all our neighbours in this Arab Spring time of revolutions in the Middle East and of growth of Muslim presence in Europe.

Perhaps we may learn to be not merely in dialogue but in love with each other, as the Evangelist John reminds us, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.” (John 3: 16)

   Gregorios III