%1

In tough straits: Can the ecumenical logjam be broken?

The ecumenical path has always been narrow, but recent events cast a new light on the limited and shifting range of ecumenical possibilities. With the exception of the success of the rapprochement of Luth eran, Reformed and United churches in Europe, intra-Protestant ecumenism seems to be dead in the water.

Russian Orthodox: Female head of German church no reason to end talks: Ecumenical dialogue can continue

Although two celebrations of 50 years of dialogue between Russian Orthodox and German Protestant churches were canceled suddenly in a dispute over the election of a woman as Germany’s senior Protestant leader, a Russian church official says that academic conferences may become a way to continue ecumenical relations.

The meetings planned for November 30 in Berlin and for December 8 in Moscow were canceled after remarks by Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairperson of the Moscow Pat riarch ate’s Department of External Church Relations.

Anglican leader, in Vatican City, downplays church strains: Dialogue back on track

Speaking in Vatican City a month after the Vatican unveiled plans to facilitate the conversion of conservative Anglicans to Catholicism, Arch bishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams offered a moderately hopeful assessment of ecumenical relations between the two churches.

The “ecumenical glass is genuinely half full,” he said on November 19 after his lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University.