Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Sacra theologia
16 MIHÁLY KRÁNITZ III. Pierre Michalon (1911-2004) and Spiritual Ecumenism After Paul Couturier’s death, his friends sought to find new forms to take the idea of spiritual ecumenism further. There were two Catholic ecumenical groups in Lyon at the same time: one the Centre Saint-Irénée, led by Dominican Maurice-René Beaupére,10 11 and the other the Ecumenical Center of Christian Unity, headed by Pierre Michalon, with the support of Cardinal Gerlier. The two groupings represented two specific trends. It was important to distinguish between the role of prayer and theological work. In the background, however, there was often a distrust of the secular priesthood towards the monks. It also became clear that the spiritual ecumenism that developed in Lyon could only survive its founder in Lyon.11 Pierre Michalon, who was led toward unity by his priestly, biblical ability and pastoral work, grew up with the task he had taken over as Paul Couturier’s legacy. The Centre Saint-Irénée went its own way, with Dominican theologians on its side such as Yves Congar (1904-1995)12 and Christophe-Jean Dumont (1897-1991).13 However, the Ecumenical Center of Christian Unity was given an institutional character by Pierre Michalon. The material for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity from 1958 was prepared by the Centre Oecuménique in Lyon in collaboration with the Committee Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches. However, since the II. Vatican Council, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (Vatican) and the Faith and Order have been preparing a booklet for the week of prayer with an international joint committee.14 The 1950s already preceded in many ways the adoption of ecumenism in the Catholic Church, one of the signs of which was an encyclical Mystici cor10 For the ecumenical life of the Dominican Beaupére, see Beaupére, M.-R., Nous avons cheminé ensemble: un itinéraire oecuménique, Lyon 2012. 11 Fouilloux, É., Une affaire lyonnaise: la succession de I ’abbé Couturier, in Chretiens et Sociétés (18/2011) 105. 12 Yves Congar Chrétiens Désunis. Principes d'un Oecuménisme catholique (Shared Christians. Principles of a Catholic Ecumenism) published his work in 1937. “Interesting, that Congar attended a Protestant church for years going to a Catholic Mass instead of the Catholic church in Sedan, which was destroyed in the World War I, because the pastor olfered Catholics the use of his church. Surely this experience has also increased his susceptibility to ecumenism.” This is stated by the internationally renowned Hungarian Jesuit theologian Péter Nemeshegyi (1923— 2020), who, as a member of the International Theological Commission, always sat at the negotiating table next to Congar for a week between 1969 and 1974. Cf. Vigilia (2004/11) 810. 13 Christophe-Jean Dumont was director of the Centre d’Études Oecuméniques ‘Istina’ in Paris, founded by the Dominicans in Lille in 1927 to promote ecumenism, Russian thought and encounters with the Slavic world (meaning of the Russian word is ‘truth’). 14 See Clement, A. N., L ’abbé Couturier, 48. Paul Watson, Franciscans of the Atonement Society and the heirs of Couturier, Centre Oecuménique, is also involved in the elaboration Week of Prayer. See Pages Documentaires, “L ’avenir de la Priér pour Unité” (Lyon), n. 8 (novembre 1967).
