（2019.2.1 VaticanNews Seán-Patrick Lovett）
カトリック教会と東方教会の神学対話の合同国際委員会（the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches）が1日バチカンで開かれ、委員たちとお会いになった教皇フランシスコは対話の意義を強調する挨拶をされた。
教皇はまず、第二バチカン公会議が出した「エキュメニズムに関する教令（Unitatis Redintegratio）」を取り上げ、「皆さんがなさっている対話は、東西の間のさまざまな神学的表現を『争いよりもお互いを補い合うものと考えるべきだ』ということをよく示しています」と語り、同委員会の第16会期の終わりに当たって、「これまでに達成した成果を、ともに種に感謝することができます」と対話の意義を強調した。
委員会は現在、秘跡について意見を交換してきたが、教皇は、このことが「ミサを共に祝うことができる方向で、双方が完全に交わるための旅を続ける助けとなるでしょう」とし、今回で終了した第16会期は婚姻の秘跡を扱ったが、「愛のしっかりとした交わりの中で生きる時、人は神のお姿を完全に映すものとなります。それは、神が愛の交わりだからです」とご自分の考えを示された。
さらに、教皇は、東方教会と関係の深い中東の教会が置かれている現状を取り上げ、「彼は、戦争、暴力、迫害の結果として、ひどい苦しみを味わっています」としたうえで、「神の救いの計画の中で特別の地位を占めるこの地が、争いの長い闇の後に、平和の夜明けを証しすることができますように」と、いつもなさっている彼らのための祈りの言葉を宣べられた。そして、「教会の多くの聖人たち」の一生を思い起こされ、聖人たちを「これらの地に蒔かれた平和の種」、一致の証人の血によって現れ続ける種、「現代の殉教者たち」と呼ばれた。
神学対話の合同国際委員会は、2003年1月に、バチカンのキリスト教一致推進評議会、コプト正教会、シリア正教会、アルメニア使徒教会、エチオピア正教会、エリトリア正教会、マランカラ・シリア正教会が共同で設立し、活動を続けている。
（翻訳「カトリック・あい」南條俊二）
教皇フランシスコの挨拶の公式英語文全文は次の通り。
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO THE JOINT INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE ORIENTAL ORTHODOX CHURCHES
Friday, 1th February 2019
Dear Brothers,
“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Ps 133:1). With these words of the Psalm, I offer you my cordial welcome and I thank you for your commitment to walking along the paths of unity, and for doing so in a spirit of fraternity! I am pleased, every second year, to welcome you to Rome on the occasion of your dialogue which last year was held in the See of Holy Etchmiadzin at the invitation of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Through you, I extend my greetings to my venerable and dear Brothers, Heads of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. I am grateful for the kind words of His Grace Bishop Kyrillos, the new Co-President of the Commission, whom I assure of my prayers and best wishes for his work. With gratitude, I also remember his predecessor, beloved Metropolitan Anba Bishoy, who was the first Co-President and who recently passed away. I join you in praying for him.
At the conclusion of your work this week, the sixteenth session of your Commission, we can together thank the Lord for the fruits already gathered along the way. Your dialogue expresses well how, between the East and the West, the “various theological expressions are to be considered often as mutually complementary rather than conflicting” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 17), as affirmed by the Second Vatican Council, whose sixtieth anniversary of its announcement we celebrated a few days ago. I offer my prayer and encouragement that your current reflection on the Sacraments may help us to continue the journey towards full communion, towards the shared celebration of the Holy Eucharist. You have dedicated this session to reflecting on the Sacrament of Matrimony. I like to recall what the book of Genesis says about this: “God created man in his own image… male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). Man is fully in the image of God not when he is alone, but when he lives in a stable communion of love, because God is a communion of love. I am certain that your work, carried out in an atmosphere of great harmony, will be to the benefit of the family of God’s children, the Spouse of Christ, who we desire to present to the Lord “without spot or wrinkle” (Eph 5:27), without wounds and without divisions, but in the beauty of full communion.
Many of you belong to the Churches of the Middle East which have suffered terribly as a result of war, violence and persecution. As I meet you here, I recall the recent meeting in Bari which brought us together as Heads of Churches for a deeply intense day of prayer and reflection on the situation in the Middle East, an experience, I hope, which may be repeated. I want to assure all the faithful in the Middle East of my closeness, my constant thoughts and my prayers that this land, unique in God’s salvific plan, may, after the long night of conflict, witness the dawn of peace. The Middle East must become a land of peace, it cannot continue to be a land of hostility. May war, the daughter of power and destitution, give way to peace, the daughter of law and justice and may our Christian brothers and sisters be recognized as full citizens enjoying equal rights (cf. Address at the Conclusion of the Dialogue, Bari, 7 July 2018).
The lives of many saints of our Churches are seeds of peace sown in those lands; they are now blossoming in heaven. From there they support us on our journey to full communion, a journey that God desires, a journey that summons us to walk, not according to fleeting convenience, but on the path of openness to the Lord’s will: that “all may be one” (Jn 17:21). He calls us, ever increasingly, to a coherent witness of life and to an authentic pursuit of unity. The seed of this communion, thanks also to your important work, has blossomed and continues to be watered by the blood of the witnesses of unity, by so much blood shed by the martyrs of our time: members of different Churches who, united by the same suffering for the name of Jesus, now share the same glory.
Dear Brothers, as I renew my heartfelt gratitude for your visit, counting on the intercession of these martyrs, I invoke upon you and your ministry the blessing of the Lord. And now, if agreeable to you, we can pray the Our Father, each in our own language.
