Folia Theologica et Canonica 11. 33/25 (2022)
Sacra theologia
12 MIHÁLY KRÁNITZ I. The life of Joseph Ratzinger during the unfolding ecumenism Joseph Ratzinger was bom on April 16th, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany. The Reformation started in Germany and spread throughout Europe in a short time, and in the course of missionary activity, it also spread to other continents. Protestant thought has been present in German spirituality for more than 500 years. This Christian thought also applied to the Catholic and Lutheran churches. Joseph Ratzinger was born exactly one year after than Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Mortalium animos, forbade Catholics to participate in any ecumenical event. At the same time, prayer for the unity of the church began to spread more and more worldwide. In 1908, Paul Watson (1863-1940) started the prayer octave for the unity of Christians, whose European pioneer was Paul Couturier (1881-1953), a priest from the Diocese of Lyon. So the unity movement unfolding through the Holy Spirit and the restrained, cautious orientation from the Catholic side were present at the same time. Although ecumenism based on the foundations of the 19th century was present at the beginning of the 20th century, at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, it was also present at the conversations in Malines (1921-1926), where Catholics and Anglicans consulted with the support of Cardinal Desire Mercier. The unity movement that emerged from a small mustard seed began to grow into a strong tree just after the birth of Joseph Ratzinger, when the decisive ecumenical trends Life and Work (1925) and Faith and Order (1927) were created. Another fruit of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference was the foundation of the International Missionary Council in the United States in 1921. These fresh and new organizations held their conferences one after the other and thus prepared the establishment of the Ecumenical Council of Churches. During this time, between the two world wars, the young Ratzinger grew up in his own Bavarian Catholicism and became stronger spiritually and intellectually. The parallel lines did not touch at that time, but the German Lutheran Church was accepted as a member in 1948 in the World Council of Churches. An ecumenical community developed in the 1930s and 1940s, which started in Amay-sur-Meuse in Belgium in 1926 and then settled in Chevtogne in 1939, including Benedictine and Orthodox monks. Following Abbé Paul Couturier (1881-1953) spiritual ecumenism found many followers from Catholic side after the World War II. Early 1937 at the request of Couturier was established the Groupes des Dombes to promote theological ecumenism, which provided an excellent theological and spiritual background for the Christian-Protestant dialogue that Joseph Ratzinger had to face. It was also at this time that Roger Schütz founded the Taizé community. Continuing Couturier’s legacy in Lyon, France, the Sulpician Pierre Michalon (1911-2004) became head of the Centre Unité Chrétienne. His monthly ecu
