Good afternoon. Our first item of business is time for reflection, and our leader today is the Rev Alison McDonald, minister, Northesk parish church, Musselburgh, and convener, Church of Scotland committee on ecumenical relations.
When people are determined to meet, there is always a way. In an age that now seems remote, though well within living memory, when Europe was divided into east and west, the Conference of European Churches was born. Its aim was to bring together churches separated by the iron curtain. Gathering was a complex business. In 1964, a planned assembly looked destined for failure when the German Democratic Republic denied delegates permission to travel. Not daunted, the conference chartered a ship large enough to house the 230 participants and sailed to the neutral demarcation line between Denmark and Sweden. The GDR delegates sailed out to meet it and the assembly was held at sea.
A boat out at sea is the logo of the present-day Conference of European Churches, which brings together 115 Anglican, Protestant, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches from across Europe, from Iceland to Armenia and Norway to Greece. Today, the conference still provides a space for dialogue, promoting the unity of the church. It enables churches to act together on a European level, particularly in relation to the institutions of the European Union and the Council of Europe, contributing to debate and raising matters of concern. I am a member of its governing board.
Meeting today is no longer so difficult and can even be done by videoconference from the relative comfort of an office, yet the example of the assembly at sea still has much to say to us. It highlights the importance of gathering across division and, despite difference, finding the space to encounter one another. In doing so, we come face to face with our common humanity, from which we must not turn away.
It is an encouragement to meet, even when that may seem a risky, daunting or well-nigh impossible venture, and, in gathering, to engage in the kind of respectful dialogue that has open listening and honest exchange at its heart. Such interaction between churches and between church and society is a hallmark of the Conference of European Churches, which has acted as a bridge builder across Europe since 1959. May the assembly at sea inspire and challenge us to be bold in the pursuit of peace, justice and reconciliation across Europe today.
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