Ecumenical conference in Iraq on the Council of Nicaea

From 27 to 29 September, an academic conference entitled ‘The 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea’ was organised by the Assyrian Church of the East in Erbil. The three-day event brought together international experts from different Churches who discussed about the reception of the Council in the Syriac world, particularly by the Church of the East.

During the opening ceremony, attended by His Holiness Mar Awa III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, His Beatitude Louis-Raphaël Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, and Mr Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, a message from Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, was read by Revd Fr Hyacinthe Destivelle, Official of the Dicastery responsible for relations with the Oriental Orthodox Churches.

In his message, Cardinal Koch noted that the academic event in itself was a sign of hope for Christians in the region and that the Nicene faith was the foundation of the 1994 Joint Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. Revd Fr Destivelle contributed to the conference with a paper entitled ‘Nicaea in the Ecumenical Dialogues of the Catholic Church.’