Rome (NEV), June 8, 2017 – Colorful, multicultural, intergenerational: this is the image of the Italian Protestantism as emerged from the Protestant National Day held in Milan from 1 to 4 of June, on occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. To promote the initiative – which saw the participation of more than 1500 protestants from all over Italy – the Lutheran, Waldensian, Baptist, Methodist, Adventist churches and the Salvation Army.
The event went on in a climate of joy and sharing, but also of engagement in society, it was marked by meetings, debates, concerts, prayers, street demonstrations, and it ended with a solemn Pentecost worship, celebrated in the theatre “Dal Verme”. The occasion highlighted the themes dear to the Italian Protestants: the reception and integration of migrants, secularism and religious freedom, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, the struggle against women violence, citizenship rights, gender identity, etc. The Pentecost worship, broadcast by the National TV on Sunday morning, was preceded by a joyous and singing parade which brought the participants from Piazza del Duomo to the Theatre “Dal Verme”. At the end of the gathering, the president of FCEI, pastor Luca Negro in expressing his gratitude and appreciation for the great engagement of the Milan churches, invited everybody to the next national rendezvous on occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation: the day promoted by FCEI for Saturday October 28th in Piazza Cavour in Rome, on the theme “Free to love and serve”.
The Pentecost worship was attended also by the members of the Council of Christian Churches in Milan, among whom the Archimandrite Theofilaktos, of the Greek Orthodox church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Cardinal Angelo Scola, who, at the end of the meeting, recalling the Catholic-Lutheran declaration of Lund, stated: “ The way we relate among us affects our testimony of the Gospel; we pledge to grow further in the fellowship rooted in Baptism, trying to remove the remaining obstacles that prevent us from reaching full Unity”.
