“Not just making major steps to reconcile the divided churches, but being witnesses of reconciliation in a world” that “needs ministers of reconciliation, who pull down barriers, build bridges, make peace and open the doors to new lifestyles, in the name of He who reconciled us with God, Jesus Christ”. This is the goal that the Christian Churches of our country have set out for themselves this year, as they get ready to attend the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity from 18^th to 25^th January. It was written in a joint message by monsignor Ambrogio Spreafico, bishop of Frosinone-Veroli-Ferentino and president of the Commission for ecumenism and dialogue of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), Luca Maria Negro, pastor and president of the Italian Federation of Evangelical Churches, and Gennadios, Orthodox metropolitan archbishop of Italy and Malta and Exarch for Southern Europe (Ecumenical Patriarchate). This year’s Week takes inspiration from the biblical motto, “The love of Christ urges us to reconciliation”, from chapter 5 of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, and is celebrated the year of the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. It is not by chance that the materials for the Week have been prepared by the German Christian Churches. The Italian Church leaders commented: “The fact that today Christians can commemorate together an event of the past that has divided Christians in the West with a hopeful feeling” is a “remarkable achievement”, reached “through fifty years of ecumenical dialogue”. That’s why Italian Christians too have been called to be “ministers of reconciliation” in the world.

As real examples of this “ministry of reconciliation”, the Churches mention “the hospitality offered to so many refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and other countries”; and then “the efforts made by Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, to help those people who are forced by injustice and abuse to live in the ‘existential suburbs’ of society”. One of the most interesting Italian project is the ecumenical one of the “humanitarian corridors”, started in 2016 by the Italian Federation of Evangelical Churches, Comunità di Sant’Egidio and the Waldensian Board, which will bring to Italy one thousand asylum seekers, chosen among the most vulnerable ones, in perfect safety by the end of 2017. Hence the final wish: “May this Week of Prayer be an opportunity to pray for this and for the other ecumenical projects in which the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Churches are involved and to further the Christians’ joint testimony of the reconciliation that God gave us in Christ”.