Online lecture

“LET US GO IN PEACE”:
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH FOR RECONCILIATION

Thursday, November 21, 7 p.m. CEST

On Thursday, November, 7 p.m. CEST, the next event of the “Liturgy after the liturgy” series will take place. It will be a round table on the subject of war and peace, its title “‘Let us go in peace’: The mission of the Church for Reconciliation”. Participants will be Prof. Constantin Sigov and Dr. George el-Hage. It is the second event of the series, organized by the Holy Metropolis of France and the Vicariate of French-speaking parishes, (Vicariate Sainte Marie de Paris et Saint Alexis d'Ugine, Ecumenical Patriarchate), in collaboration with the Volos Academy for Theological Studies. The event will be accessible online either via Zoom (at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88550815627, with free registration at https://vicariatorthodoxe.fr/inscription-catechese/) or via the YouTube Channel of the Vicariate at https://www.youtube.com/c/lalettreduvicariat. The event had been scheduled for last May but finally was postponed. It will be in French.

The very nature of the conflict in Ukraine makes the question on war and the mission of the Church a question of paramount importance. Launched by a systematic lie and the distortion of reality, the conflict in Ukraine has a spiritual dimension without precedent in recent history. Today, we are in great need of an alliance between all those who work to tell the truth, and are faced with the task of preserving a space where truth and human dignity are respected. It is the imperative of every believer to say clearly that the instrumentalization of Christianity carried out by Putin is a heresy, a radical desecration of the Faith, the embodiment of an absolute cynicism. It is the duty of Christians in Europe to speak out against this manipulation of spirituality and this perversion of the evangelical discourse, to recall the Decalogue –the prohibition of killing, stealing, and lying– and the Psalms in favor of justice.

Constantin Sigov is Professor of philosophy and Director of the European Research Center in Human Sciences at the National University “Mohyla Academy” in Kyiv, and honorary doctor of Aix-Marseille University. He was Deputy Director at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, member of the editorial team of the European Vocabulary of Philosophies and a laureate of the PAUSE program at the University of Paris 8 in 2023-2024. He founded the publishing house “Dukh i litera” (“Spirit and Letter”) in Kyiv, which publishes translations of French works of philosophy and human sciences into Ukrainian. A major intellectual figure in the resistance against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has published four books on this subject in France and internationally, including in 2023 “Le courage de l’Ukraine” [The Courage of Ukraine] (Éditions du Cerf) and “Philosopher sous les bombes: Avec l’Ukraine en résistance” [Philosophizing under the bombs: With Ukraine in resistance], PUF).

Dr. Georges El Hage was born in Beirut and worked in finance and banking before turning to theology and history. He studied theology at Saint-Sergius, the Catholic University of Paris and Loyola Faculty (Jesuit institute), as well as history at the Sorbonne-Paris. He teaches Patristics, Orthodox missiology, and the history of the Ecumenical Movement at the Catholic Institute of Paris. He is the current President of Syndesmos , The World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth Movements.