c. 1998 Religion News Service

World’s Christians near setting common date for Easter

(RNS) An ecumenical proposal to establish a common date for Easter throughout all Christendom has won strong support from some prominent church leaders.

Easter, the feast celebrating Jesus’ Resurrection, is usually commemorated on two separate dates, one by most Protestants and Roman Catholics (April 12 this year) and the other by most Orthodox Christians (April 19). The division, known as the”Paschal controversies,”developed over disagreement on the reformation of the calendar by Pope Gregory XIII some 400 years ago.

The Rev. Thomas Fitzgerald, an Orthodox priest and director of the Program for Unity and Renewal at the World Council of Churches, said he was”pleasantly surprised by the positive responses”to a WCC proposal developed last year in Aleppo, Syria, that would set the first common date for Easter as April 15, 2001.”It shows that many churches take the issue seriously, and recognize the value of the proposals from the Aleppo meeting,”Fitzgerald told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

At the Aleppo meeting, representatives of the world’s major Christian groups agreed on a proposal that would calculate the date of Easter based on the formula developed by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. using more modern astronomical techniques.

In that case,”Easter should fall upon the Sunday following the first vernal full moon,”Fitzgerald said.

The year 2001 was chosen as the first opportunity to present a unified date for Easter because the dates using the current methods coincide that year and because it would be the first year of the third Christian millennium.

In a letter to the WCC, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, wrote, the”Catholic Church is ready to endorse the conclusions of this consultation, and to work together with other Christians toward this much desired goal …” Said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians,”The only solution for a pan-Christian celebration of Easter on the same date would be the faithful application of the decision taken by the Council of Nicaea,”ENI reported.

Also expressing interest in the proposal are the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the South African Theological Commission and the Presbyterian Church (USA), among others.

The Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (cq), has called for the issue to be put on the agenda of the WCC’s Eighth Assembly, to be held this December in Harare, Zimbabwe.”There is a move (for a common date), there’s no doubt about that,”said Fitzgerald, who called the division over Easter”an internal scandal”for Christianity.”It’s not an easy process, but at least there is awareness of the issue.”

Church Universal and Triumphant leader stricken with memory loss

(RNS) Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the Montana-based Church Universal and Triumphant is suffering from epilepsy and a degenerative neurological disease causing memory loss at a time when her controversial and financially hobbled church had been seeking mainstream religious acceptance.

Prophet’s illnesses have prompted her church to provide her with around-the-clock caretakers, according to the Bozeman, Mont., Daily Chronicle.

Prophet, 58, is believed by followers to be in contact with a group of heavenly spiritual teachers known as the Ascended Masters, who range from Jesus to Merlin the magician. Church beliefs are an amalgam of Eastern and Western esoteric traditions.

While the church does not release membership figures, the April 1998 issue of Nova Religio, an academic journal that studies new religious groups, said the church had no more than 50,000 followers in 1993.

However, since that time the church has been radically reorganized along the lines of a business. Prophet’s role has been redefined as board chairman and spiritual leader and Gilbert Cleirbaut, a longtime church member from Canada, was named church president.

This”second life cycle,”as the church termed the changes, has not stopped the massive financial and membership losses that have plagued the church since 1990, when a Prophet-predicted nuclear holocaust did not materialize. The church had stockpiled weapons and built bombshelters in anticipation of the nuclear devastation.

The Bozeman newspaper said Prophet’s four adult children have left the church and her fourth marriage has ended.

Despite her health problems, church spokesman Chris Kelley has told the Associated Press that Prophet continues to lead the church.

The church, founded in 1958 by Prophet’s late husband, Mark, and headquartered just north of Yellowstone National Park in Corwin Springs, Mont., last year adopted a more candid approach to its internal problems. In a statement, the church called itself”a new religious movement moving into the mainstream …” Austrian prelate told to stop functioning as bishop

(RNS) Roman Catholic Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who was forced to retire as head of the Austrian church over allegations of sex abuse, has been instructed by his successor to stop acting as a bishop.”I have asked Cardinal Groer to refrain from carrying out the activities of bishop, such as confirmations, for the time being,”Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said in a church magazine interview released Friday (March 27).

In 1995, Groer, 78, was forced to retire following allegations he had molested a schoolboy more than 20 years ago. Since then, several monks and priests have also accused Groer of making sexual advances but Groer has never admitted or denied the accusations, Reuters reported.

A Vatican mission is investigating the allegations.

In February, Schoenborn and four other Austrian bishops issued an unprecedented statement saying they believed the accusations against Groer were”essentially accurate,”Reuters reported.

Since the sex-abuse allegations against Groer first surfaced, thousands of Austrians have left the church.

Pope, Cuban foreign minister meet at Vatican

(RNS) Pope John Paul II, who visited Cuba in January, has held a follow- up meeting at the Vatican with the Caribbean nation’s foreign minister at which they discussed humanitarian issues and further cooperation.

The meeting Friday (March 27) between the pope and Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina came three days after the Vatican received U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

She and Vatican officials discussed the Clinton administration’s recent moves to increase humanitarian assistance to Cuba, according to the Associated Press.

Robaina had been critical of the measures, calling them “scraps disguised as humanitarian aid,” though Cuban President Fidel Castro said they were constructive.

A Vatican statement released after the meeting with Robaina said attention was given to the “significant humanitarian measures” the Cuban government “has taken and will continue to take as homage” to John Paul’s desires, an apparent reference to the release of 299 prisoners, including Cuban dissidents, whose names were on a list given to the Cuban government by the Vatican during John Paul’s Jan. 21-25 visit.

During a meeting Tuesday, U.S. officials said Albright gave the Vatican a list of four Cuban political prisoners whom Washington wants released, as well as the names of 12 prisoners freed but later reportedly re-arrested.

Catholic Church ordered to remove religious dialogue posters

(RNS) A court in the Netherlands has ordered the Roman Catholic Church to remove hundreds of posters promoting religious dialogue in schools because they infringe on copyright laws.

The posters, which spoof a 1967 painting by American abstract artist Barnett Newman, depict two slits that form a cross on a red background and are flanked by yellow and blue stripes. The caption reads”Who’s Afraid of God?” Newman’s work is entitled”Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III?” The suit was brought by Newman’s widow, who asked the court to have the posters removed. The Utrecht District Court also awarded the Newman family $7,000 in damages, the Associated Press reported.

Archdiocese of Utrecht spokesman Jan-Willem Wits said he was”unpleasantly surprised”by the ruling, and added that the church is considering an appeal.

Grahams honored with Bible society’s award

(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham and his daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, have received the 1998 Golden Word Award from the International Bible Society.

The first joint presentation of the 5-year-old award was made March 20 in Colorado Springs, Colo., where the society is based.

Graham was honored for his worldwide preaching efforts over the last 50 years. Both he and Lotz, a Bible teacher and the founder of AnGeL Ministries, were recognized for their commitment to Scripture.

Lars Dunberg, international president of IBS, said Graham was recognized for his ministry and for passing his legacy onto his five children, who are all involved in Christian service.”Each of them is qualified to be here,”he said, adding that Lotz was chosen for”her special ability to encourage people to search the Scriptures for themselves. She is truly a woman of the word.”

Quote of the day: The Rev. W.T. Snead, president of the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America.

(RNS)”I think it wouldn’t matter if these were all poor white people. These problems are put in neighborhoods where people cannot defend themselves. I saw a line of greed everywhere I went. I was so touched and so incensed I made it my Sunday morning message when I got back to my church.” _ The Rev. W. T. Snead, president of the National Missionary Baptist Convention, at the end of a visit to so-called”cancer alley”in Louisiana where a concentration of polluting industries and toxic waste dumps were pointed to as an example of”environmental racism.”Snead was quoted by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news service.

DEA END RNS