BOCS Homepage


Regional News

Civilian Service Meeting in Rumania

In December 1997 a meeting on conscientious objection and civilian service took place in Deva, Rumania. BOCS Foundation and the Church and Peace Eastern European regional office initiated the meeting. Our primary partner was the Rumanian branch of Youth Action for Peace (YAP-Ro).

Our goal for the meeting was to reach people in Rumania who are interested in creating a liberal attitude towards conscientious objection: peace organ-izations; NGOs and groups which could employ young conscripts; church organizations; young people who could be called into the army at any time.

CH & P REGIONAL TRENDS
Our venue was a former Franciscan monastery, now an orphanage for about 120 children. A Franciscan monk, Csaba Bojte, runs the home. Csaba, who took part in the meeting, hopes that at least the younger children will one day enjoy the freedom to choose between military and civilian service.

The legal provision in Rumania for conscientious objection is very limited; the law permits Jehovah's Witnesses to do unarmed military service for twice as long as regular conscripts. But as Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to participate in any kind of military service and would rather go to jail, no one makes use of this law.

Recently YAP-Ro conducted a survey on conscription among high school students, the majority Rumanian, in Kolozsvar, a large city in Transylvania. 41 % of the students oppose military service, 31 % have heard of civilian service and 25 % would choose civilian service if it were an option.

About 25 young people attended the meeting in Deva. After getting to know each other and the particulars of the Rumanian situation, we talked about the new civilian service law in Hungary and similar legal provisions in Western countries. We also discussed what sort of work could be done as well as possible employers. At the conclusion of the meeting we wrote a short press release.
We plan to meet again in March 1998, this time with participants from throughout Eastern Europe. We also hope that more people from the Orthodox church within Rumania will attend (one of the leading Orthodox figures, Metropolitan Daniel, has ex-pressed his support). In addition to developing a campaign for the intro-duction of a new civilian service law in the Rumanian parliament, this meeting will be devoted to an Eastern Euro-pean Church and Peace gathering.

Katalin Simonyi
TRM


Francophone Region Defines Ob-jectives

The new steering committee for the francophone region of Church and Peace (CARF) met for the first time on 4 December 1997. Present were Marie-No‰lle von der Recke, Michel Sommer, Louis Joly, S_ur Irmtraud, Anita Thomas and Sylvie Poupaert.

It has been our wish for a long time now that a structure similar to that in Britain and Ireland be developed for our region. A co-ordinator, particularly working only part-time, can not do every-thing, and a group with representatives of different confessions and geo-graphical areas allows for broader contacts and more in-depth work.

Louis Joly opened the meeting with a meditation and a time of prayer. As this was our first meeting, our first and primary task was to define our objectives. These can be summarized in three points: reinforcing and expanding the network; dialogue with churches that have not yet embraced the peace church vision; and development of peace services.

CARF's tasks will be to organize regional conferences, participate in regional events, represent Church and Peace, be in dialogue with regional ecumenical organisations, assist with the French Quarterly and help with fund-raising. For the moment we wish to keep the CARF fairly informal and plan to meet twice a year.

Our most concrete agenda item was preparation for the next regional conference which will take place 18-20 September at Centre Alain de Boismenu. The theme will be "Programme to Overcome Violence - Peace to the City". We hope this will be a chance for members to meet and share experiences as well as allowing for theological reflection and motivating members to become involved in the WCC Programme. We also wish to call the churches to action in this regard.

Various persons active in activities related to the programme will share about their work. Sociologist and theo-logian Frédéric de Coninck enthu-siastically accepted our invitation to speak! He will address the following themes: "An in-depth look at violence in the city" (sociological analysis) and "What is our role as Christians and that of the churches in the face of vio-lence?"
Finally we discussed the French Quarterly: thanks to Terri at the Lauf-dorf office who is co-ordinating this work there has already been much improvement but we wish to continue and increase our involvement in the production and publication of the Quarterly, both in editorial (content selection) and practical (translation, proof-reading etc.) areas.

I feel that we accomplished a lot for a first meeting. I'm very thankful for everyone's involvement and am en-couraged by that which we were able to organize.

Sylvie Gudin Poupaert
Trans: TRM


CH & P REGIONAL TRENDS
Britain & Ireland Conference as Follow-Up to Graz - Meeting with Ecumenical Spirituality Project

The Church and Peace Committee for Britain and Ireland is hard at work preparing for the English-speaking regional conference in June which will follow up on the Graz theme of reconciliation. There will be a mix of presentations and workshops. Fea-tured speakers are Andrew Clark, General Secretary of Quaker Peace and Service, and Marie-No‰lle von der Recke, Chairperson of Ch&P. A festive evening is planned for Saturday, with a play-reading of "The Bridge" and games used by peace educators work-ing with children.

********

On 27 January Britain and Ireland Committee members Ursula Windsor and Eleanor Kreider met at Woodbrooke College, Selly Oak (Birmingham) with a group convened by the Ecumenical Spirituality Project of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland. The participants, from England and Northern Ireland, planned to discuss the connections between spirituality and peacemaking.

Questions for the meeting from the Ecumenical Spirituality Project included: What nourishes peacemaking? How can we encourage connections between the culture of violence and the culture of peace? What shared spiritual insights and beliefs undergird our yearning for a culture of peace? Ch&P Britain & Ireland members' concerns centred specifically around the ideals and spirituality of the peace church.

It is not yet known what initiatives might grow out of this meeting which was primarily a conversation and brainstorming session.

Eleanor Kreider
TRM


German-speaking Region Takes Shape - Regional Conference Planned for October

Following up on a decision made during the 1997 Ch&P General Assembly, several German-speaking members of Church and Peace met in September at Weierhof (D) to envision future work in the Ch&P German-speaking region.

As a result of the meeting preparation has begun for a regional conference at the Mennonite conference centre Thomashof (D), 2-4 October 1998. The regional conference will be in conjunction with the autumn meeting of the German Mennonite Peace Committee (DMFK). The theme of the conference is "The Nature of the Peace Church" or "What form does the peace church identity take in the everyday life of the community?" Mennonite, Catholic and Protestants speakers and conference participants will share their perspectives on the topic. We hope that through this meeting we can initiate contacts with groups interested in peace church themes who might wish to become members of our network. A planning meeting regarding structures and work in the German-speaking region is also scheduled to take place during the conference.

We would welcome suggestions and comments concerning both the conference and regional work in general. Please contact either Paul Gentner or Hans Jakob Galle .


Hans Jakob Galle
Crayenbühlstr. 21
67295 Bolanden-Weierhof
Tel: +49 (0) 6352 5636

Paul Gentner
Bannmühle
55571 Odernheim am Glan
Tel: +49 (0) 6755 764

Hans Jakob Galle,
Marie-Noelle von der Recke
Trans: TRM