The annual meeting of Eastern Rite Catholic Bishops is to take place Oct. 17-20 in Košice (Slovakia), European Capital of Culture 2013, on the occasion of the 1150th anniversary of the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Slavic territory (Great Moravia – Slovakia, the Czech Republic, South-east Poland, and North-west Hungary).
In Košice, the bishops representing 14 Eastern Rite Catholic Churches in Europe will tackle the theme of evangelisation of culture, with re-reading, too, of the evangelising mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius from an historiographic point of view and the challenges which the Church faces today. Speakers include Cardinal Jozef Tomko, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples; Mgr Cyril Vasil’, Archbishop Secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches; the Apostolic Exarch for Byzantine Rite Catholics in Greece, Mgr Dimitrios Salachas; and Fr Juraj Dufka SJ from Košice’s East-West Centre for Spirituality, who will speak about Art as a tool for evangelisation.
“The aim of the meeting is for Eastern Rite Catholic Bishops to discuss the challenges which our Churches must face at the local level”, said Mgr Milan Chautur C.SS.R., Eparch (Eparchial Bishop) of Košice, adding: “The 1150th anniversary of the evangelising mission of the brother Saints Cyril and Methodius to the Slav peoples and to Great Moravia, enables us, in the course of Year of Faith, to question ourselves about the theme of evangelisation of modern cultures and the inculturation of the Gospel, starting from our ecclesial, liturgical and cultural reality, so that the message of love and the truth about humanity which Christ brings, while remaining always the same, may be welcomed by the men and women of today”.
Participants at the meeting, supported by the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), will include Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and CCEE President, and His Beatitude Svjatislav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Greek-Catholic Church in the Ukraine.
