“Christian movements and communities can reconcile an increasingly polarised Europe”, said Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, on the first day of the Congress organised by the Ecumenical Network “Together for Europe”, which started yesterday in Munich, Germany, until 2 July. 1,700 people from 200 movements and 40 countries have gathered at the Krone Circus to attend the event. “If we do not clarify Europe’s pressing issues, we will be overtaken by them”, said Gerhard Pross, from the International Steering Committee, adding that “Europe should learn how to share”. The 15-year experience of the communities and movements in the “deep process of reconciliation towards a communion in which diversity is seen as an asset” enables communities to counter centrifugal forces in Europe with a journey towards a new “togetherness”. Cardinal Reinhard Marx (president of the German Bishops’ Conference and president of COMECE) and Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm offered the example of their journey together. The “ecumenism of the heart” is “more promising for the future of the Church than one may think”, said Bishop Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. “The goal of unity can only be achieved through full reconciliation”, Card. Marx stressed. And “our strength to do this comes from our encounter”.