Churches of Central and Eastern Europe share experiences in social services to needy

An international interdenominational conference "Churches in the Service to the Needy: Possibilities of Cooperation with Secular Organizations" was held in J. Rau Minsk International Education Center (Belarus) from November 16 to 19, 2011, reports the Institute for Religious Freedom.

The ecumenical conference was attended by representatives of the Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, Ukrainian and Belarusian Greek Catholic Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and representatives of the UN, the Belarussian authorities, various NGOs and humanitarian organizations engaged in service to the needy.

The conference was opened with the welcome speeches of the leaders of main Belarusian Christian denominations: Metropolitan Filaret (Belarussian Orthodox Church), Metropolitan Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (Roman Catholic Church), Archimandrite Sergiy Hayek (Belarussian Greek Catholic Church), bishops of the Lutheran and Baptist churches.

There were reports on such topics as "Social Service in Belarus," "Church and Business: Ways of Cooperation," "Social Responsibility of Churches," "Partnership Between State, Business and Church" at the conference.

Oleksandr Zaiets, head of the Board of the Institute for Religious Freedom (Kyiv), told about the Ukrainian realities of the work of denominations in the social sphere.

The conference was organized by the international ecumenical working group “Reconciliation – the Churches' Task in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Germany,” which has existed for over 10 years. The group brings together official representatives of the Orthodox, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic churches in Central and Eastern Europe. The main purpose of the group is to achieve reconciliation between nations and churches.