Three Generations -
with Energy and Vision: 30 years Ecumenical Forum of European
Christian Women 1982-2012
Cornelia Göksu, Martina Heinrichs, and Gabriele
Kienesberger, editors Sheila Brain and Jill King,
translators
Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women £7 (incl.
p&p)
BY 1990, ecumenists like me realised that we had made a bad
mis-take in assuming that the end of the Cold War would lead to a
golden age of Christian unity. Exactly the opposite happened. The
leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches fell out; old
ethnic and religious animosities re-emerged from under the sea of
Communist misery; and hot war returned to Europe.
In conflict situations,
women suffer most: they are also the first to pick up the pieces
and clear up the mess made by men. So it was in the Balkans - one
example among many of the pioneering work of women of faith in, for
example, reconciliation, interfaith dialogue, the environment, and
opposition to trafficking.
The story goes back to the
struggle to have their willingness and ability to contribute fully
to the life of the Churches recognised in the 1960s. We are
painfully reminded how recent are attitudes in Christendom which we
now condemn in Islam. Women have consistently supported the
Churches more than the Churches have supported women.
The pioneers were mostly
Protestant, Germanic, and Western European; but the focus has
shifted to the East and South-East, and to Roman Catholic and
Orthodox women, who speak of the importance of seeing the
possibilities of a different life, sometimes through study abroad,
but more often simply through friendship and fellowship, and the
opportunities for consul- tation and action afforded by the Forum,
founded in 1982. It was given that name precisely because men
feared that any other word, such as "committee" or "council", might
imply that it actually had any authority.
Luke tells us that Jesus was
30 years old when he began his work. Let us hope that, for his
female followers in Europe, the best is yet to come.
The Very Revd Dr John
Arnold is a former President of the European Conference of
Churches.
*This title can be
obtained from Mrs Dorothy Knights, 192 Brook Farm Drive, Malvern,
WR14 3SL.