From 5 - 11 June 2002, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and All Turkey, Mesrob II, paid an official visit to the Evangelical Church in German and its regional Churches. It was in return for the visit of an EKD-Delegation under the leadership of Praeses Manfred Kock, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, to the Churches in Turkey in 2001. On Sunday, the 9th of June, the two church leaders signed the following joint statement:

We, Mesrob II, Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and All Turkey, and Manfred Kock, Chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, have come together for common prayer and ecumenical discussions. We want to commonly express our deep gratitude to God, our Father, for bringing our churches together long ago, and in recent years for strengthening and deepening the fellowship that exists between them.

During this visit, we have exchanged thoughts and experiences about Christ's witness to our present world and the task of our Churches within that context. Proclaiming the Gospel to all people has always been the main task of our Churches. The visit to Wittenberg reminded us of the concern of the Reformation to preach the Gospel clearly and biblically. Patriarch Mesrob II, preaching in an evening service in Martin Luther's church, the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg, said: "We Christians believe that God's answer to our human failures is the way of Christ. We have both a privilege and an inescapable duty to proclaim this at all costs."

Making that concern a part of our church-life, we must also find news ways of expressing our faith in words that will really reach the hearts of the people in our secular societies today, and will become relevant also to the next generation, the children and the young people in our countries. We therefore recommend the development of an exchange program for youth-groups from both our Churches.

In our encounters during the last days we also spoke about the lack of peace and justice in our world today. We are especially concerned with the situation in the whole Middle East. During the last hundred years millions of Christians have left the region, where faith in our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ originated, where the life of the Early Christians prospered as a consequence of apostolic mission. We, the Churches in the world today, must ensure that this region not be emptied of its Christian presence.

With great grief we spoke about the situation in the Holy Land. Both of us have been with church delegations in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and other places in recent months. We were shocked by the increase in violence on both sides. Both our Churches have any Israeli and Palestinian friends on both sides of the conflict - Jews, Christians and Muslims. Therefore, we identify with the deep fears and also the sufferings of so many people. We have seen the damage done to buildings and to human souls. Bearing in mind that so many children have been traumatized by violence in these days, we earnestly pray that the people of the Holy Land not lose hope of living together in peace.

Together with the other member churches of the World Council of Churches we are trying to respond to the appeal of the Decade to Overcome Violence rejecting the employment of any form of violence and terrorism in pursuit of political aims. Therefore we urge the parties of conflict in the Holy Land to stop the violence and return to negotiations for a just peace and coexistence in freedom and dignity, for which we continue to pray.

Aware of the minority situation of Christians in the Middle East, and of Muslims in European countries, we are convinced that the dialogue between the representatives of both faiths needs to be developed in order to promote mutual understanding, tolerance and co-operation. It is precisely the lack of the objectives that give rise to fanaticism, intolerance, defamation and all sorts of violence. We therefore re-commit ourselves to the concrete work of reconciliation according to the wishes of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9)

Berlin, 9.6.2002

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