Oct 14

Public Religion, Ambient Faith in Ukraine

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What does religion look like, once it has undergone a process of secularisation but refuses to become invisible, private or something neutral? In other words what happens when religion returns to the public arena? Well, it becomes “public religion”. This return is not uncomplicated, because religion has “to negotiate” its presence in the public realm – something which at one given time in the past was entirely unnecessary. Church back then was expected to be present and in a straightforward way; no discussions needed. Continue reading →

Oct 07

75th Anniversary of the Executions of Jews in Babyn Yar

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Distance in time allows us to sweep many particular historical events (of whatever magnitude) together in one encompassing narrative, as did the Greek Catholic Bishop of Paris Boris Gudziak. On 27 September 2016, he discussed Ukraine’s bloody past in Ukrainian Parliament. Since the Bishop and Communicantes know each other for many years now, it is understood that this happened with good intentions. The Kiev Post-website published Bishop Boris’ text. Continue reading →

Oct 07

9th Ecumenical Social Week: Migration, a Challenge to Ukraine

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The crisis in Ukraine has caused the internal displacement of some 1.7 million Ukrainians. These so-called Internally Displaced Persons now live shattered all over the country, although most of them settled as close to home as they could be. Theme of the 9th Ecumenical Social Week in Lviv was this internal migration. Organiser was the Institute of Ecumenical Studies of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Frans Hoppenbrouwers of Communicantes attended this meeting on 28-29 September 2016. Continue reading →

Jul 19

Annual Report 2015

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Dear Friend of Communicantes,
Please have a look at the print version of our Annual Report 2015 in English: read in pdf.
For copies of previous annual reports (2005-2014) in Dutch and in English, follow this link.
Contents
A Word from Our President 1; Europe. Illusions and Disillusions 2; Communicantes in 2015 4; Projects 2015 6; About Communicantes 8

May 25

A car accident is a car accident?

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Last Thursday 19 May 2016 was held an expert-meeting of the Theology after Gulag research group (ThaG-group). Main coordinator was Dr Katja Tolstaja of INaSEC: the Institute for the Academic Study of Eastern Christianity at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.of INaSEC: The ThaG-group is interreligious and multidisciplinary, and aims at understanding the experience of communist totalitarianism from religious, sociological, historical (and son on) perspectives. Continue reading →

Mar 30

Oekraïnereferendum

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Verhef het Oekraïnereferendum van 6 april 2016  boven GeenPeil. Een ‘ja’-stem is een stem voor een betere toekomst voor Oekraïne. Een ‘nee’-stem een knieval voor Russische propaganda, bodemloze angst en emotie. Een brede, losse coalitie van gelovigen, maatschappelijke activisten en zakenwereld maakt zich breed voor een breuk met het communistische verleden. Die verdient onze steun. Lees hier de kerkelijk geëngageerde stemmen.

Aug 05

Catholic Social Teaching in Eastern Europe and Self-Secularisation

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On 29 May 2015 Frans Hoppenbrouwers of Communicantes discussed the fate of Catholic Social Teaching in Eastern Europe at the Dutch Centrum voor de Sociale Leer van de Katholieke Kerk (CSLK). Follow this link for the text in English: “Catholic Social Teaching in Eastern Europe. Faith and Action as Types of Self-Secularisation in the Context of the One Europe ”.

Jul 02

Communicantes Newsletter 2015/1

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Please, read our Communicantes Newsletter 2015/1 with a short description of our main activities in the first half of 2015.
Highlights were:
– our mini-conference ‘The Churches and the war in Ukraine. What do the Churches contribute to peace and reconciliation?’ on 4 April 2015
– a meeting of Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic religious sisters from the Netherlands and Eastern Europe who put on boxing gloves at a five day ecumenical meeting in the Netherlands (1/5 June 2015).