Zibelemärit

It is unbelievable but true: yesterday in Bern there was an annual event called the Zibelemärit, which is the Bern dialect for… Onion Market. And yes, indeed the event is all about onions. Yes… those round things you use for cooking that have a horrible smell though they taste wonderful.

And so, given that this is a traditional folk festival reportedly started in the 1850s although some people say it goes as far back as 1405 and thus makes it something that you’ve got to experience at least once in your lifetime especially if you just happen to be roughly two hours away from it, I went to Bern to see what the hype is all about (with Chris joining me later during the day).

Just like the name says, the event is mainly about the Onion Market, or the selling of onions by farmers from the surrounding areas. However, the onions aren’t just sold by the kilograms, but rather made into pretty fascinating decorations, for the house…

and for the kids…

There are also colourful “onion” candy necklaces…

and part of the fun (for kids of all ages from 2 to 99) is having confetti wars (read: feel free to throw confetti at anyone… including the police!) — I still wonder how they’re going to clean all that confetti from the streets though, it was quite literally covered with confetti… and some confetti even made it as far as the Cornavin station in Geneva!

And of course, they had onion related food, like onion cake, onion soup, onion sausage… or the more commonly known garlic bread.

served by someone quite appropriately dressed for the occasion (though he didn’t seem quite so happy about it):

… only in Switzerland, I think!

We also went to visit the Cathedral, but I’ll let Chris tell you more about that 🙂

The Ecumenical Centre (Part 2)

We cannot date the photograph (which comes from an old postcard), but we have chosen it because it provides a panoramic view of the Ecumenical Centre and its surroundings. Occupying a standpoint from the east, the viewer sees the Ecumenical Centre in its entirety against an immediate background of Spruce trees. The Jura Mountains form the remote backdrop in this photograph.

Henry Knox Sherrill, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA, raised the money to build the Ecumenical Centre, to which the Lutheran World Federation also contributed. Henri Lesemann and the Honegger Brothers were the architects in charge of the construction of the building. The principal planning architect was Otto Senn. WCC also consulted with Prof. Otto Bartning about the design. The result was a square central block from which three wings of two storeyed offices–on either side and at the back–extend. The wings are named after the geographical features visible from the site: the Jura mountains, the Rhone river, and the Lake of Geneva. The gray of the reinforced concrete, which is a feature common to the entire multiplex, is relieved with panels of dark blue glass and by both blue corrugated and polished natural aluminum. Less than one year of the completion of the Centre, the first expansions were introduced. Now the two tallest wings adjoining the central square are five storeys tall; the third wing has four floors.  The single storey L-shaped library, built over cellars that house several million archived WCC documents, is set apart from the main structure.  To accommodate even greater numbers of staff, a fourth wing, “Salève” (pre-alpine mountain to the southwest of downtown Geneva), was added. At one time the Centre was the workplace for 350 persons employed by different church organizations, including  the Lutheran World Federation, the Conference of European Churches, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the World Student Christian Federation, Action of Churches Together, Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, Ecumenical Church Loan Fund, as well as the liaison offices of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Moscow.  The economic crisis of the last fews years has forced WCC, LWF and other organizations to reduce staff. But the Centre is not noticeably underutilized. Today, there are many smaller bodies and organizations–not necessarily church-related–that operate out of the Ecumenical Centre along side of the older ecumenical ones.

The Ecumenical Centre

As a confessionally Reformed theologue at a Roman Catholic university, it was with good reason that I quickly became an enthusiastic student  of the ecumenical movement and the historic general assemblies that the World Council of Churches (WCC) held from its founding at Amsterdam in 1948 to its most recent at Porto Alegre in 2006. During those long years of graduate study at Marquette University, it never entered my mind that I would one day work at the hub of the ecumenical movement: the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland.

What I’ve had in mind during the last two weeks or so is to use this platform to provide a “virtual” guided tour of the Ecumenical Centre.  It will consist for the most part of photographs accompanied by captions that hopefully will connect together to form a coherent narrative. Since my photographer is not in the office today, I can use this post only to announce my intention and give a brief  introduction.

We work in one “wing” of  a two-storeyed multiplex that was designed and constructed between the third and fourth general assemblies of the WCC (New Delhi 1961 and Uppsala 1968). The site was provided by the Canton of Geneva in exchange for property on the Route de Malagnou, on the other side of the Lake of Geneva, where until this time WCC staff had been working. Situated in a zone designated for the World Health Organization, the International Labour Office, et al., with the United Nations’ Palais des Nations at the center, the new location was and still is ideal for a global organization. By 1964 staff members were able to move into their new offices. In the following year the conference hall and chapel were completed.

More to come . . .

Day of Prayer for Peace at Assisi

This time I want to use this space to reflect on the 25th Day of Reflection, Dialogue, and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World, held last week at Assisi, Italy. Pope Benedict XVI invited  representatives not only  from the Christian world communions (including WCRC General Secretary Setri Nyomi), but also from the major religions of the world. Almost three hundred participants gathered to affirm their commitment to peace and justice at a time when the divisions in the world along ethnic, religious, and class lines are becoming increasingly felt.

What I found remarkable about this event is that it included among the participants people for whom faith is not yet or no longer a possibility, but who nevertheless desire to stand  in solidarity with those who are inspired by their respective religions to pursue the values the event celebrated. In his address, Benedict devoted considerable space to characterizing this category of people. He designates them as “agnostics.” He distinguishes them from “atheists” in terms familiar to those among us who remember our first-year philosophy courses. Atheists assert that “there is no God.” But agnostics refuse to prescind from the possibility that God (or a god) exists. Instead, they ask questions of both sides. In this way, according to the Pope, they render a valuable service to the church and the world. I quote here  in extenso an except from the address:

[Agnostics] take away from militant atheists the false certainty by which these claim to know that there is no God and they invite them to leave polemics aside and to become seekers who do not give up hope in the existence of truth and in the possibility and necessity of living by it. But they also challenge the followers of religions not to consider God as their own property, as if he belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated in using force against others…

Let me venture to say that I have met already in the brief two months I have been in Geneva people who would categorize themselves as agnostics. These people do not react with hostility when I share with them what I am doing here with WCRC. In fact, often we find common ground; it often happens that the organizations for which they are working are engaged in projects that resemble those supported by WCRC. And I discover that they are no less dedicated to humanitarian causes than those I know with religious faith.  So they are not (consciously?) motivated by faith in God, but would one dare say that they are not concerned with truth, even passionately so?

Arnold Come, an American theologian who studied with Karl Barth, has made observations about the relationship between the philosopher and theologian, observations that I think are apropos here. The philosopher and the theologian walk two different paths. But they must listen to each other because both are ordinary human beings who must live together in the same “room.” They are called to different tasks but by the same reality. Each one ought to be responsible to the “one and the same and only truth” while at the same time true to the responsibilities of his or her own undertaking. That is, the philosopher should aspire to be no more and no less than a philosopher. And the best thing the theologian can do for the philosopher is to be a theologian responsible to the theme that theology has: Jesus Christ as the light and hope of the world given by the God who is the creator of the world. (Arnold B. Come, “Advocatus Dei–Advocatus Hominis et Mundi,” in The Later Heidegger and Theology (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 118. )