The Budapest Times
Cardinal Peter Erdo – Photo: MTI

Ecumenical prayer week gets under way

Written by BT/MTI
Cardinal Peter Erdo, Hungary's Catholic leader, stressed the importance of the "helping love" that binds Christians together and touches everyone, at the opening of an ecumenical week of prayer at Saint Stephen's Basilica in Budapest on Sunday evening.

Christians are united by the fact that they are all disciples of Christ and recognise Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, the Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest said.

“And if we are his disciples, then we must follow his teachings,” he added.

Explaining the story of the Good Samaritan, the central parable of the prayer week, Erdo said the message of the parable was that “for the sake of God, we must turn to each other with helping love and we cannot exclude anyone from this love”.

Reformed Church Bishop Jozsef Steinbach, head of the Ecumenical Council of Hungarian Churches, said the introduction to the parable of the Good Samaritan, when a lawyer asks Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life, highlighted “that all of our problems … stem from the fact that we have become separated from God and are mortal”.

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