“Communion and solitude” is the theme of the 18th International Ecumenical Congress on Orthodox Spirituality, which will be held at the Monastery of Bose (Italy) from tomorrow to 11 September 2010. The event is organised in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches. “The contraposition between individual and collectivity – reads a statement issued by the organisers - can find in the Christian, and in particular in the Orthodox tradition a way of humanization in the vital tension between communion and solitude, two essential dimensions of the spiritual life”. “By listening to Scripture and the teachings of the fathers, the symposium wishes to rediscover the fertile relation of these two poles that constitute human living”, continued the statement. The work of the conference will begin with an inaugural lecture by the prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, and by the talk of the Serbian bishop Irinej of Baèka (Novi Sad) on “Church and monastic experience”. The latter “is called to be a synthesis and irradiation of the spiritual dynamics between communion and solitude”. Theologians and historians of the Orthodox Churches, of the Catholic Church, and of the Churches of the Reform will take part in the meeting, together with numerous monks and nuns from Orthodox monasteries (Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Mount Sinai, Georgia, Armenia) and Catholic monasteries (Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Hungary).

© SIR - september, 7th 2010