Dear Joint CEC-CCEE Working Group for the Charta Oecumenica,

Dear Conference of European Churches (CEC),

Dear Council of European Bishops' Conferences (CCEE),

The international movement We Are Church, founded in Rome in 1996, is committed to the renewal of the Roman Catholic Church on the basis of the Second Vatican Council and the theological spirit developed from it.

Last September we joined your call for the revision of the Charta Oecumenica, a document of fundamental importance for the European Churches, and we sent you two documents containing numerous amendments to the new draft that you made public.

We had been eagerly awaiting the presentation of the revised Charta Oecumenica on 26-27 April 2025 in Vilnius, Lithuania, and we are very sorry that the event had to be postponed due to the death of Pope Francis.

While waiting for you to announce the new date for the presentation, we take the liberty, in sibling spirit, to ask that this be a public event, open to believers of all Churches, and not by invitation only.

We remember well that in 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the Charta Oecumenica, a fourth European Ecumenical Assembly was announced for 2026, the 25th anniversary of the Charta Oecumenica.

We were very surprised that this convocation was no longer mentioned, and that the revised version of the Charta Oecumenica no longer refers to the European Ecumenical Assemblies. Why?

We believe that the three European Ecumenical Assemblies in Basel, Graz and Sibiu have played a very important role in raising ecumenical awareness in our Churches, and we are convinced that more “ecumenism of the people” is needed: an ecumenism too focused on Church leaders is insufficient.

For this reason we ask that the presentation of the new Charta Oecumenica be an ecumenical celebration, to which you warmly invite all members of our European Churches.

And we call for a return to the planning of an upcoming European Ecumenical Assembly: 18 years after the last one, with the challenges and divisions tearing Europe apart, we feel it urgent to reconvene the believers of our Churches, to deepen the faith that unites us and to continue the ecumenical process of justice, peace and integrity of creation as an evangelical vocation at the service of Europe and the world.

A greeting of peace,

Colm Holmes, Chair We Are Church International
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Dr Martha Heizer, Vice-Chair We Are Church International
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International Coordinating team: Valerie Stroud (England & Wales), Mary Morrissey (Ireland), Jean-Pierre Schmitz (France), Ashik Naz Khokhar (Pakistan), Christiane Bascou (France), Martin Schockenhoff (Germany), Kathleen Gibbons Schuck (USA), Gemma Lamarra (Scotland), Elza Ferrario (Italy), Virginia Saldanha (India)