Proiecte finalizate 2018

Exchange between Tübingen and ASCOR Galaţi

Vă redăm integral scrisoarea oficială transmisă de dl. Simon Wandel, Pastor şi Director Spiritual al Evangelische Stifft Tubingen la finalul Schimbului de Experienţă din această vară dintre studenţii teologi protestant lutherani şi studenţii de la ASCOR Galaţi

Your Eminence, after the 22nd meeting of students from Galaţi and Tübingen, which took place from the 28th of July until the 6th of August 2018 in Württemberg, has succesfully realised, I would like to send You a short letter to mention some of our activities during the days we spent together.

The theme of this year’s meeting was called „Ora et Labora. Spirituality in everyday life and work“. In accordance to this motive we had visited some different places in

Württemberg, where Christian spirituality plays in present times, or played in history, an important role. We spent two days in the Benedictine monastery of Neresheim, where we got the possibility to join the prayers of the monks and to talk with the subprior about the present monastic life. We was invited in the Evangelische Stift Bad Urach, a special place of the Protestant Church in Württemberg, which gives people the chance to stay there for a certain amount of days to concentrate on their relationship to God, to pray, to sing, to get their souls healed. We also saw some of the most impressive churches in Württemberg, we visited a former monastery in Bebenhausen and we reflected about the Evangelische Stift in Tübingen, where we lived, and which is, from its founding times until today, a symbolic place where spirituality and work is combined.

But we did not only visit places and we did not only hear about the connection of spirituality and work in different, Romanian und German, contexts, we also lived spiritual life together. Therefore we celebrated evening prayers, the one according to the Romanian-Orthodox liturgy, the other according to the Protestant liturgy. We joined a Roman-Catholic divine service in Neresheim, a Romanian-Orthodox divine service in Tübingen and a Prostestant divine service in Rottweil.

For me, who was the first time involved in this exchange programme, it was interesting to see how important this exchange is for the leading responsibles of our church in Württemberg. We had the chance to meet the Prelate of Reutlingen, the Deans of Ulm and Tübingen and a member of the synod of the Protestant Church in Württemberg.

They all spent some hours with us and where interested to discuss with the students.The general theme „ora et labora“ opens the view also at the combination of faith and work. We discovered this field by visiting an important institution of the Diakonie in Reutlingen and we were talking with a member of the Diakonie in Württemberg, but also with a member of the German Parliament, who came to Tübingen to meet us.

The German students guided our Romanian guests through the Protestant Theological Faculty in Tübingen and we also had the chance to visit the Ambrosianum, a Catholic-Theological institute, which has close connections to the university.

The most important part in this exchange are not the excursions, but the people who take part in the exchange. Therefore I was glad to see that the Romanian and the German group fit together very well. Some of students knew each other from the last year‘s exchange and were happy to meet again. The positive atmosphere in the whole group, the will to understand each other better and better and the vital community of young Romanians and Germans during those days showed me, that the ecumenical goals of this exchange programme can be achieved. Our Romanian guests were very interested in this study trip and with the seminars, with the stories they told us and also with the many Romanian songs they sung, they gave us Germans an insight in the Romanian life, faith and soul.

I would like to thank You, that You sent Father Cosmin Ilie with the Romanian group to Germany. He was able to explain the backgounds and the details of the Romanian Orthodoxy in a way that the Germans could easily understand. I got to know him as an intelligent and friendly person and, maybe the most important thing, as a really blessed priest.

I am also thankful that we have in the organisation ASCOR, and especially in ASCORs president Mihai-Codruţ Mirica a strong and reliable partner to realise this student meetings. It is remarkable how much power and love Codruţ is, year after year, investing in this exchange. I am confident that the exchange programme between Tübingen and Galaţi will also be realised in the future and that the ecumenical friendship between the Romanian and the German students will grow further.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless You!

Many greetings, also from Senta Zürn of the DiMOE bureau in Reutlingen

Pastor Simon Wandel