European churches mourn Norway victims

 

“We categorically condemn such acts which try to destabilize a democratic

country and terrorize the population,” the Orthodox president of the

Conference of European Churches, Metropolitan Emmanuel Adamakis, said in a July 23 statement.

 

The message came as prayers continued in Norwegian churches for victims of

the July 22 attacks, in which Anders Behring Breivik killed eight in a bomb

blast in Oslo before shooting dozens of young people at a summer camp on the

island of Utoya.

 

The Norwegian general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Olav Fykse Tveit, said many of

his shocked countrymen were “seeking churches for

support and answers,” and accused the gunman of “blasphemy” for citing

Christianity as a justification for his acts of mass murder.

 

“It’s important to say to all Muslims wherever they are, in Europe or

elsewhere in the world, that these actions in no way can express our

Christian faith and our Christian values,” Tveit told the Associated Press. “As Christians, we need

to be aware of this, how our faith and our religion can be abused. This event shows how

important it is that we continue this work more than ever.”

 

In a message to member churches, the director general of Norway’s ecumenical

Christian Council, Else Steen, described the massacre as an “unimaginable

tragedy” and urged churches to offer themselves as “places of care,

participation and prayer for those affected.”

 

The Pope deplored the “grave terrorist acts” in a Rome address on July 25,

and said he would pray “that all Norwegians will be spiritually united in a

determined resolve to reject the ways of hatred and conflict, and to work

together fearlessly in shaping a future of mutual respect, solidarity and

freedom for coming generations.”

 

A service of mourning was attended on July 24 in Oslo’s Evangelical-Lutheran

cathedral by King Harald V and premier Jens Stoltenberg, whose office was

targeted in the bomb explosion, as well as government officials and families

of the murder victims. Further prayer meetings and vigils were staged on

subsequent days in Norwegian churches.

 

Preaching at the televised cathedral requiem, the head of Norway’s

Evangelical-Lutheran church, Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien, urged

Norwegians to “declare themselves for love and justice,” and not to be

“paralyzed by fear.”

 

“Democratic and human values are deeply rooted in our society, and they will

be preserved,” Oslo’s Catholic Bishop Bernt Eidsvig told Austria’s Roman

Catholic Kathpress agency on July 26. “There are indeed Christian

fundamentalists in Norway, but they would never perpetrate such an action or

show the slightest sympathy for it.”

 

Among other reactions, the ecumenical Council of Churches in France said in

a message on July 26 it counted on a “prompt return of peace” in Norway, and

for “a dialogue of truth and love so necessary for reinforcing justice and

equality in the world.”

 

Scandinavia’s Roman Catholic Nordic Bishops Conference described the outrage in a

July 25 message as “an expression of senseless violence,” which

would “bring untold suffering and despair for many people.”

 

“Attacking the core institutions of a democratic society and innocent youth

gathered for a workshop to discuss political issues, leaves me shocked,”

said Tveit. “In times like this, the Norwegian people and government need

the solidarity of the international society and the prayers of the worldwide

church. Now we know the reality of so many others in the world where

violence pierces the lives of the innocent.”