A glimmer of ecumenical hope from the heart of destruction
Dr. Michel E. Abs
Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches
In wounded, grieving, and devastated Beirut, we, the ecumenical family in Lebanon, gathered to perform the opening prayer for the Season of Creation.
In the National Evangelical Church in Beirut, and with the generous hosting of its pastor, we came, from all parts of besieged Lebanon, to celebrate life while we were at the crater of nothingness.
Some tried to criticize, considering that protecting the environment is a luxury, and they missed that protecting the Creator's gift, the House of God, our habitat in this life, is as important as the loaf of bread, medicine and fuel. Some have missed the point that this meeting is a peaceful, civilized and silent revolution against those who brought the country of generosity and hospitality to this gutter.
He who humiliates the people and deprives them of food, medicine and light is the same one who turned his country into a large prison in which some people find it easy to enslave others and push them to endure the hardships of living among the rubbish and mines of life.
In the National Evangelical Church of Beirut, we gathered, in an ecumenical assembly, to thank the Creator for his gifts and to renew our promise before His Cross, the symbol of redemption, which we are delegated to preserve the trust.
All Christians were one inside the church edifice. They prayed, meditated, sang and listened to words aimed at raising awareness and galvanizing them in order to protect what remained of the green nature of Lebanon; Lebanon where the smells of garbage have replaced the smells of jasmine, lavender and pine. From Lebanon, the message reaches out to the East as well as to the whole world.
Lebanon, the fresh breeze that "restores the spirit”, is suffocating under the smoke of tens of thousands of generators planted in its cities and villages.
Lebanon's prosperity and affluence, has its streets now littered with people searching in waste bins for leftover food.
Lebanon the land of joy, art and creativity, is now being emptied of its children who are deserting it in search of a better life!
In return for all this, in response to all of this, the prelates of the Church in Lebanon gathered at the National Evangelical Church in Beirut, to announce that the pledge of allegiance to the Incarnate, the Crucified One, who rebelled against the merchants of the Temple as well as against total annihilation, had not said their last word yet.
With confidence, love and illuminating determination, the prelates of the universal Church attended an ecumenical meeting with a group of believers renewing their faith in a loving Creator thanking Him for His creation.
They came together from all churches, and from all regions, in defiance of the spreading pestilence, the lost fuel, and the roads suddenly cut off.
In this ecumenical gathering, the firstborn of the season of creation, the wealth of Eastern Christianity was manifested, as was its unity in its diversity.
Texts of prayers, meditations, and hymns filled the church building, shared by all in a spirit of an ecumenical joy that had long been absent because of what the country is going through.
The plants that adorned the church were silently responding to the drought that ravaged the country. The spiritual unity that was manifested in the Church was retorting, in silence, to the social disintegration that the country is witnessing. The apparent friendliness among the celebrants was calmly answering to the estrangement sweeping the country.
It was an ecological ecumenical wedding par excellence.
It was a triple symbolic day: an ancient church building overlooking what was during the war a demarcation line embraced an ecumenical meeting aimed at protecting the environment.
This celebration was prepared by believers with high qualifications who completed their work professionally and efficiently. This celebration was accompanied by similar celebrations in Egypt as well as in other countries in the region, testifying to a regional dimension encompassed by other works and activities of the MECC. The hand of God is with the community.
From under the rubble, from the heart of destruction, among the fires, the ecumenical movement still defies extinction and fragmentation, and sends a glimmer of life to everyone concerned with a better future for humankind.