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Document Details :

Title: De Syrische dialoog
Author(s): DAVIDS, A.
Journal: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies
Volume: 47    Issue: 3-4   Date: 1995   
Pages: 213-233
DOI: 10.2143/JECS.47.3.2003136

Abstract :
The foundation Pro Oriente, founded by Franciscus Cardinal König at Vienna in 1964, has taken important initiatives in the field of the ecumenical dialogue with the Eastern Churches and with the Oriental Churches by organizing unofficial consultations and meetings. In the seventies a common christological agreement between representatives and theologians of the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church has been elaborated, which was adopted by several official bilateral agreements between Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. In June 1994, an unofficial consultation in Vienna brought together representatives and members of different churches in order to start a dialogue with the Churches of the East Syrian tradition and the Churches of the West Syrian tradition. In this Syriac dialogue the history and the theology of the Assyrian Church of the East were dealt with, but a common christological statement could not be formulated yet. On 11 November 1994, Pope John Paul II and the Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV signed a common christological declaration, in which the Churches found themselves united in the confession of the same faith in the Son of God, despite the controversies of the past, which had often lead to anathemas, bearing on persons and on formulas, and despite the divisions of the past, which were for the greater part due to misunderstandings. A mixt committee for the further dialogue between the two Churches was established.