This weekend the Synodal Congress of the Church of Turkey will take place in Ephesus and Izmir, with meetings, moments of prayer and a solemn Eucharistic celebration. Bishop Bizzeti takes stock of the work done so far and the most urgent questions for the future. Families as the first place to cultivate faith and give further impetus to the spread of Christianity. The issue related to the Treaty of Lausanne.
Istanbul () – Training of the laity, integration of neophytes in traditional communities, overcoming a clerical Church and the urgent need to form and consolidate a diocesan reality that integrates a Church “that until now has depended on religious orders” . These are the main issues that have been raised along the synodal path that the Catholic community in Turkey is traveling, Msgr. Paolo Bizzeti, apostolic vicar of Anatolia and president of local Caritas, explains to on the eve of the Congress that will take place in Ephesus and Izmir on October 8 and 9. “The Turkish Church – says the prelate – is in a moment of great liveliness, thanks to the presence of young and enthusiastic bishops and people who want to get involved. At the same time there is a situation of great fragility”.
The vicar of Anatolia considers that the most serious problem is that the Catholic Church is a “minority without legal recognition”, which means that “our situation and condition are always very precarious”. Those who pay the highest price are the “Syrian refugees [cristianos]who cannot open chapels and places of prayer, meeting and aggregation centers, especially for young people” who run the risk of being the most marginalized.
In recent months, the Turkish Catholic communities, in communion with the universal Church, have “deepened” the synodal path proposed by Pope Francis, favoring the “active participation” of all the faithful. In a message presenting the Synodal Congress of the Church of Turkey, which will last two days, Archbishop Martin Kmetec, Archbishop of Izmir and President of the Episcopal Conference, calls for active participation in an event “of great importance”. The program includes moments of prayer, meetings, round tables on topics of greatest interest and a solemn Eucharistic celebration at the end of the Congress, whose main objective is to contribute to the growth “in discernment” of the local Church.
In these months, Catholics have embarked on a synodal path that resulted in a document sent to Rome. “We note – says the vicar of Anatolia when presenting the two-day event – the usefulness of bringing together the people who participated in this path and who represent each of the dioceses” in order to “elaborate a synthesis of the work carried out and have the opportunity to tell what is happening in the Church in Turkey”. There is great enthusiasm among the faithful to participate in “celebrations and parties”, but there is a lack of “a certain impulse to make Christianity known, to assume responsibilities” in a Church that is still “very dependent on its pastors”.
Added to this is the issue of “neophytes, refugees”, who show “great liveliness”, but one of the problems that must be solved is training, especially of priests, who are often not prepared for the evangelization but only for the administration of the sacraments”. “It is not enough – he adds – to take care of a flock already settled. Here in Turkey, as in any other part of the world, we need people capable of giving birth and replanting communities”, in a Church that has a great “variety of charisms.” The laity must be less passive and more prepared, above all living a domestic Church and faith within families” that are “the first protagonists of evangelization”.
The Turkish Church still has many needs, such as the lack of human and economic resources, but at the same time it has a treasure, which is not only the places of the past that pilgrims come to visit, but “the living communities themselves. It would be very important – says Bishop Bizzeti – to increase the possibilities of knowledge and meeting between the faithful, the exchange of charisms, the moments of study and deepening of the different realities, such as the Syriac Church, which is a true ‘third lung’ of the Christianity with its theology and its liveliness.
At the Ephesus meeting, the next stages of the synodal path will also be defined, to give continuity to the process. Some of the problems of the Church in Turkey are related to “institutional issues”, concludes the prelate. He hopes that on the occasion of the centenary of the Treaty of Lausanne “a review of the relations, currently frozen, between the Turkish State and the Catholic Church can be made, so that there is a full recognition [incluso jurídico] of the community”.
