Metropolitan Mar Yulios to attend Orthodox-Evangelical consultation of senior leaders at Addis Ababa
MOTV – 101/10/16
ADDIS ABABA: HG Pulikkottil Dr Geevarghese Mar Yulios, Ahmedabad Diocese Metropolitan, will represent the Indian (Malankara) Syrian Orthodox Church at the regional Orthodox-Evangelical consultation of senior leaders, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from October 11 to 14, 2016.
On October 13, Metropolitan Mar Yulios will deliver a talk on ‘The role of religious communities in peace-building’ followed by a plenary discussion.
The Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative (LOI), is a venture jointly led by evangelical and Orthodox Christians which grew out of the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2010. To date the LOI has held three highly successful international consultations hosted in Albania and Finland. The Lausanne consultation will have its theme based on ‘Witness, Peace and Unity.’
The consultations will also see sessions on Orthodox Mission from St Mark until Today’ and ‘Evangelical Mission in Ethiopia’ with plenaries on ‘Christian-Muslim Relations’ and ‘Promoting the Priority of Dialogue between our Christian Traditions’.
The consultation is being held at the invitation of HH Abune Mathias, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the evangelical community within Ethiopia. The three-day consultation will be hosted at the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa.
The Addis Ababa consultation will see particular focus on Christian witness in multi-faith contexts, the Christian call to peace building and work for unity, respect and reconciliation between different Christian traditions. Of the 60 invited participants just under half of those attending will be drawn from Christian communities outside Ethiopia (India, Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, the USA and Europe) while the remaining will be Ethiopian evangelical and Orthodox Christians.
On October 15, after the sessions, there will be sightseeing around Addis Ababa and the participants will take part in Orthodox Church Feast Day. On the concluding day, October 16, they will also participate in a local liturgy/worship in both Orthodox and Evangelical churches.
Revd Canon Mark Oxbrow is the Lausanne Facilitator for Orthodox-Evangelical Relations with His Grace Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Britain, and Mrs Grace Mathews, Vice-Chair of the Lausanne Movement, the co-chairs of the Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative.
