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EPISCOPAL SYNOD: GREGORY III LAHAM, “THE STRATEGY OF THE SMALL FLOCK” IN THE EAST

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Creato: 14 Ottobre 2012

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“Drawing up a concise, accurate and clear text about our faith”. This “is imperative for the new evangelisation”.
This was stated by Gregory III Laham, patriarch of Antioch of the Melkite Greek Church and head of the Synod of the Catholic Melkite Greek Church (Syria), as he spoke yesterday afternoon at the sixth general convention of the Episcopal Synod about the new evangelisation. “We, Christians of the East - Patriarch Laham explained -, live surrounded by a non-Christian world: we are the small flock, ad extra compared to Islam, ad intra because of the decreased practice of religion”. We have, therefore, “to work with such double reality, ad extra and ad intra, in mind. This means focussing our pastoral work about the new evangelisation on this small flock, without neglecting our somehow less practising devotees. This small flock must be excellent to be able to form, through it, groups of agents of the new evangelisation. Even if the Church grew to colossal proportions, it should retain the strategy of the small flock”. According to the Patriarch, “this is the meaning, the essence, the motivation, the reason d’etre of the small flock in the East and anywhere else. It is the apostolic strategy: forming the small flock, together and to the benefit of the large flock”.

© www.agensir.it - october 12th 2012