Pro Oriente? Not Only!

Pro Oriente? Not only! Wherever you look, no direction seems to have been overlooked in these 60 years, be it in the geographical, historical or political sense. Nevertheless, the view always remains focused: when things were going badly politically in the world, the Pro Oriente has ensured in its work that the accents are set in such a way that that political tragedies do not make Christian hope forgotten; when the political situation improves, the Pro Oriente has never done focus on political delights so much that they become a source of hope. The Pro Oriente takes the political circumstances into account, but it does not want to be politics itself. The Pro Oriente is a part of the Western Church, but it does not want to be simply the Western Church’s view on the East. The aim here was never to lecture the East ‚ex occidente’, but first of all to enable a real mutual encounter of the West and the East, to let the Western and Eastern Christians learn from one another and to direct their look towards the East proper, i.e. the mystical “East”, pro Oriente, to the Light that comes from there (ex Oriente lux!) to enlighten the world, in Oriente et Occidente. Ad multos annos! Auf viele Jahre!

Anna Briskina-Müller