Seelisberg Conference

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Hotel Sonnenberg in Seelisberg

The International Conference of Christians and Jews ( International Conference of Christians and Jews , and Emergency Conference on Antisemitism ) was from July 30 to August 5, 1947 in the municipality of Seelisberg , Switzerland instead.

Goal and participant

Its purpose was to determine the causes of Christian anti-Semitism . Among the 65 participants from 19 countries were:

Five commissions worked out final texts on the causes of anti-Semitism, on educational measures and on necessary legal changes. Behind the “Message to the Churches” of Commission III were Prof. Erich Bickel , Chairman of the Christian-Jewish Working Group , Pastor Adolf Freudenberg , Head of Refugee Work in the Ecumenical Council of the Churches in Geneva, Father de Menasce and Zwi Taubes , the Chief Rabbi of Zurich. The commission initially threatened to fail because its leader, Father Lopinot, Nuncio of the Vatican, expected a concession from the Jewish side as a prerequisite for a Christian admission of guilt and a correction of the doctrine, which met resistance from the Jewish delegates. Only a compromise could solve the conflict: "For their part, the Jewish participants have agreed to ensure that everything is avoided in Jewish lessons that could disrupt the good understanding between Christians and Jews."

During this conference, the assembled Christian intellectuals reviewed Christian doctrine about the Jews and Judaism . They asked to what extent the Christians were responsible for the National Socialist genocide through the transmission of anti-Semitic and anti-Judaistic prejudices , and then stated that Christian teaching urgently needed to be corrected in this regard. To this end, they worked out ten theses , which were largely determined by the 18 proposals for avoiding prejudice against the Jews of the historian Jules Isaac. Their dissemination should help to reduce the prejudices against the Jews that existed in Western and Christian thought.

consequences

as a result, the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ), which Clinchy headed for the time being, was founded with offices in Geneva and Paris near UNESCO . A follow-up conference with a pedagogical focus was followed by the 1948 Friborg Conference . Three years later, in July 1950, Protestant and Catholic theologians met in Bad Schwalbach and looked for the biblical basis of the Seelisberg points together. The result was the Bad Schwalbach theses . Jules Isaac handed over to Pope John XXIII in 1960 . various documents that went into the innovative Nostra Aetate Declaration in 1965 . Pius XII. had warned Catholics in 1950 against working in Christian-Jewish societies, in order not to make it possible to relativize their faith through indifferentism . Only in 1964 was this repealed by Vatican II .

With reference to Seeligberg, twelve theses of Berlin were published in 2009 . An appeal to Christian and Jewish communities around the world was adopted by the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Berlin.

The ten theses of Seelisberg

The Christian conference participants formulated ten theses for a changed relationship between Christians and Jews under the title " An Address to the Churches ", which were translated into German for a conference of the ICCJ in Berlin:

  1. It should be emphasized that one and the same God speaks to us all through the Old and New Testaments.
  2. It should be emphasized that Jesus was born to a Jewish mother of the line of David and the people of Israel, and that his eternal love and forgiveness embraced his own people and the whole world.
  3. It should be emphasized that the first disciples, the apostles, and the first martyrs were Jews.
  4. It should be emphasized that the highest commandment for Christianity, the love of God and neighbor, already proclaimed in the Old Testament, confirmed by Jesus, is equally binding for both Christians and Jews, in all human relationships and without each Exception.
  5. It is to be avoided that biblical and post-biblical Judaism is degraded in order to thereby increase Christianity.
  6. Avoid using the word “Jews” with the exclusive meaning “enemies of Jesus” or the words “the enemies of Jesus” to denote the entire Jewish people.
  7. Avoid presenting the Passion story as if all Jews or Jews alone were burdened with the odium of the killing of Jesus. In fact, it was not all Jews who called for Jesus to die. It is not the Jews alone who are responsible, for the cross that saves us all reveals to us that Christ died for the sins of all of us.
  8. Avoid treating the curse in Scripture or the cry of a maddened crowd: “His blood be upon us and our children” without reminding us that this cry cannot outweigh the words of our Lord: “Father “Forgive them because they do not know what they are doing”, words that are infinitely more important.
  9. Avoid encouraging the ungodly opinion that the Jewish people are rejected, cursed and destined for constant suffering.
  10. One should avoid omitting the fact that the first members of the Church were Jews.

In some publications, the seventh thesis is supplemented by the following sentences:

“All Christian parents and teachers should be made aware of the heavy responsibility they take on in presenting the Passion story in a superficial way. As a result, they run the risk of planting an aversion in the consciousness of their children or listeners, be it intentional or unintentional. For psychological reasons, in a simple mind moved by passionate love and compassion for the crucified Savior, the natural disgust for the persecutors of Jesus can easily turn into an indiscriminate hatred for all Jews of all times, including those of our time. "

literature

  • Paul Démann: De Seelisberg à Vatican II . In: Revue Sens. New series . No. 305, February 2006, pp. 77-84.
  • Menahem Macina: Le rôle de Paul Démann à Seelisberg . In: Revue Sens . No. 51, 1999, pp. 434-439.
  • Pierre Mamie : La Charte de Seelisberg et la participation du Cardinal Journet . In: Judaïsme, anti-judaïsme et christianisme: Colloque de l'Université de Friborg , 16-20 mars 1998 . Editions Saint-Augustin, 2000, pp. 23–34.
  • Alexandre Safran: Mes souvenirs de la Conférence de Seelisberg (1947) et de l'abbé Journet . In: Judaïsme, anti-judaïsme et christianisme: Colloque de l'Université de Friborg, 16-20 mars 1998 . Editions Saint-Augustin, 2000, pp. 13-22.
  • ICCJ (Hrsg.): The history of a relationship in transition, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung publishing house : The Berlin Theses: Time to New Commitments , Sankt Augustin 2009 ISBN 9783490955944

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jehoschua Ahrens: Together against Anti-Semitism - The Conference of Seelisberg (1947) revisited: The emergence of the institutional Judeo-Christian dialogue in Switzerland and in continental Europe . LIT Verlag Münster, 2020, ISBN 978-3-643-14609-0 ( google.de [accessed on August 21, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Church and Israel working group in the Evangelical Church of Hesse and Nassau. Accessed August 21, 2020 .
  3. ^ Esther Braunwarth: Intercultural cooperation in Germany using the example of societies for Christian-Jewish cooperation . Herbert Utz Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8316-4087-4 ( google.de [accessed on August 24, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Twelve Theses from Berlin. (PDF) GCJZ Berlin, 2009, accessed on August 24, 2020 .
  5. ↑ International Council of Christians and Jews: An Address to the Churches. (PDF) In: International Conference of Christians and Jews Seelisberg. 1947, pp. 13-16 , accessed on August 24, 2020 (English).
  6. ^ 10 theses by Seelisberg. (PDF) In: TIME FOR A NEW OBLIGATION. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2009, p. 51 , accessed on August 24, 2020 .
  7. ↑ The Seelisberg Theses in SBK , EKS , SIG : 60 Years of the Seelisberg Theses ( Memento of October 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), 2007. Retrieved on August 10, 2010
  8. ↑ Online see web links