Romanian Orthodox Bishop Ioan Casian of Canada participated in the annual dialogue of the Orthodox and Catholic bishops from Canada.
The Canadian Conference of Orthodox Bishops was represented by the Greek Archbishop Sotirios of Canada, Bishop Andriy (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada) and Father Peter Avgeropoulos, assistant (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada).
The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Canada was represented by Archbishop Michael Mulhall of Kingston, Metropolitan Lawrence Huculak (Ukrainian Church in Canada), Auxilliary Bishop Yvan Mathieu of the Ottawa – Cornwall Archdiocese, by Bishop Daniel Miehm of Peterborough and Subdeacon Brian Butcher, assistant.
Between April 9 and 10, current topics of religious life and social and political events that affect the life of society were discussed. Among them, the following:
- the most recent declarations of the Roman Catholic Church regarding family or couple life;
- the financial instrumentalization of surrogate mothers and how modern models of family and identity can affect human dignity based on the reality of man created according to the image and likeness of God;
- the difficulties related to the two military conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza;
- the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council (325) in 2025 and the calculation of the date of Easter;
- various problems related to artificial intelligence and technology, as well as their influence in society and on young people;
- the situation of the Churches in the post-Covid period;
- the decline of Christianity in Western societies and the spread of Islam and radical Hinduism;
- the situation of Christianity in African countries;
- new spiritual-ascetic trends within Catholicism in Canada.
An important topic was the possibility of legislative limitation of religious freedom in Canada and the need to create a set of Christian values or principles common to different Christian denominations that would allow a common approach, with a more significant impact on society.
The “St. Augustine” Catholic Seminary of Scarborough / Toronto hosted the meeting. A date for the next annual meeting is to be decided later.
Photo credit: Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada
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