It all began with a meeting between Patriarch Athenagoras I and Chiara Lubich. “It was June 13, 1967,” Lubich related, “and the Patriarch welcomed me as if he had always known me and he asked me about the Movement’s contacts with the Lutherans and the Anglicans.” Between 1967 and 1972, Patriarch Athenagoras was to meet the founder of the Focolare Movement 23 times, and she was entrusted as the bearer of messages between the Patriarch and Pope Paul VI.
This relationship continued with his successor, Demetrio I. Contacts with the current Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I take place in the same spirit of spiritual friendship. His Holiness Bartholomew I, who had visited Chiara Lubich at the Gemelli hospital a few days before her passing away on March 14, 2008, later affirmed: “I wanted to visit her to give my personal greetings and the greetings of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to our dearest Chiara, who, through her life, had given and gave so much to the Church.
I gave her my blessing with gratitude. I am happy to have met her.” Two years later, when he welcomed Maria Voce, the newly elected president of the Focolare Movement at his residence in the Phanar, in Turkey, he said “ I thank God for your friendship, your visit, the fruits of your Movement, and for the continuation of this work of God that gives glory to His Name.”
A zealous worker for peace and the environment
Patriarch Bartholomew I is a pioneer in ecumenical dialogue and peace-building. Recently, at some important and historical events, he took a leading role in promoting unity on several fronts. On May 25, 2014, at the end of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he joined Pope Francis in signing a declaration to confirm their respective churches’ commitment “towards unity for which Christ, our Lord prayed to the Father so ‘that all may be one’.”
On June 8, 2014 he was invited to the Vatican together with President Mahmoud Abbas and President Shimon Peres, to pray with the Pope for peace in the Holy Land. Bartholomew I is known for his environmental leadership. His teachings on the environment have been widely quoted by Pope Francis in his encyclical “Laudato si’.”
The Patriarch delivered an address to the assembly during the ecumenical service at Notre Dame Cathedral on December 3, at the time when the United Nations Climate Change Conference was taking place in Paris. The theologian Piero Coda, President of the Sophia University Institute said: “Today, the world needs people who seek the unity of the human family, and the Patriarch is constantly rendering a valuable service towards a culture that aims to place fraternity at the heart of human history.”
The citation for his doctorate specifies: “The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is accredited for his active leading role in the ecumenical journey towards full Christian unity and in the dialogue with people of different beliefs and religions.
He distinguishes himself in promoting justice, peace and protection of the environment, in line with the vision of humanity, history and the universe that comes from the treasured spiritual and theological Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition.”
Gratitude to Pope Francis and Chiara
The Patriarch granted us an interview after receiving the Honorary Doctorate. He said, “I am really very happy to be here in the town of Loppiano. I came for the honoris causa Doctorate awarding ceremony. And at the same time, here is a wonderful coincidence: this is Loppiano’s 50th year from its founding by Chiara Lubich, whom we remember with veneration. And I, as a friend of the Focolare Movement, share the joy of this anniversary.
“Of course I cannot but feel happy and moved to have received the very first honoris causa Doctorate which Sophia has awarded. I am happy to be the first to receive it! But my greater joy and serenity, apart from the doctorate, is to receive the message Pope Francis, my most beloved brother, has sent me. The Pope wanted to honor me once again. Such a highly esteemed person wished to express on this occasion, his determination to work even more for unity between our two sister churches.”
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About Sophia University
Sophia University Institute, which is based in Loppiano since 2008, offers a Master’s and Doctorate degree in the Culture of Unity with three specializations: Economics and Management, Trinitarian Ontology and Political Studies. Promoted by the Focolare Movement, the Institute was established by the Holy See with the Decree of the Congregation for Catholic Education of December 7, 2007.
It offers an innovative model of a university, not consisting of a set of different faculties, but of an academic community of study and research which, in an intercultural and interdisciplinary context, promotes a progressive and intense integration between intellectual achievements, experiences and life choices. Sophia welcomes students from different cultural and religious backgrounds who wish to expand their course of study in the dimension of a culture of unity.
To date, more than 400 students from 40 countries of the world have enrolled in Sophia. The scientific research also develops an interdisciplinary perspective, investigating the basis of the topics of study, the link to similar disciplines and relationships between learnings.
In the vision of Chiara Lubich, the founder, the educational proposal of Sophia welcomes all human explorations, to overcome the fragmentation and abstraction of learning, the alienation and the conflicts that today threaten personal and social relationships in the encounter among different cultures, experiences of life and discipline. In this perspective, the Institute is cooperating with other experiences of cultural commitment and social transformation that express, in different ways, the same thrust toward a culture inspired by universal brotherhood.
