Schirrmacher takes part in the sixth Bonn Prayer Breakfast
(Bonn, 15.01.2025) The “Bonn Prayer Breakfast” took place for the sixth time in the Bad Godesberg City Hall in Bonn. It was initiated in 2018 by the Bonn publisher Norman Rentrop and, like the Berlin Prayer Breakfast, the “Internationale Berliner Begegnung (IBB)” and supported by the “Vereinigung für Grundwerte und Völkerverständigung” [Association for Basic Values and International Understanding], which several current and former members of the Bundestag are responsible for.
The event was attended by 110 visitors. Peter Enders (CDU), district administrator of Altenkirchen, reported on his experiences with the prayer breakfast during his time as a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament. He was a member of the state parliament from 1998 to 2021. Since the participants came from different parties, the prayer meetings also had an impact on the subsequent plenary discussions: “Those who prayed the Lord’s Prayer together also pull themselves together in tough debates.”
The chairman of the Association of Christian Churches (ACC), the Greek Orthodox Archpriest Radu Constantin Miron, gave a keynote speech in which he chose Nicholas of Myra (last third of the 3rd century and first half of the 4th century) , the model for the later “Nicholas”, as a starting point to illustrate the importance of role models of faith. Personal encounters with witnesses of the faith have always been by far the most common way for people to come to the Christian faith, both historically and in the present day, worldwide.
Radu Constantin Miron was born in Bonn in 1956, where he also studied after graduating from a theology program in Thessaloniki in 1978, where he studied Byzantine studies, Romance studies and theology. Since 1983, he has worked as a priest in Brühl, which is located between Bonn and Cologne. In 1985, Metropolitan Augoustinos Lambardakis, whose official residence is the Metropolitan Church of Agia Trias in Bonn, appointed Miron as archpriest of the German metropolis, and in 2004 as archpriest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Since 2009, he has been a lecturer at the University of Bonn for the Master of Ecumenical Studies program. Since 2019, he has been the chairman of the Association of Christian Churches in Germany. Miron is married and the father of five adult children.
Archbishop Thomas Paul Schirrmacher discussed plans for an international center in Bonn in honor of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the honorary head of all Orthodox churches, with Archpriest Miron, with whom he has been working together for many years. Schirrmacher had last spoken with Miron at an international religious freedom meeting at the Ministry for Development Cooperation in Berlin, where both represented the Christian churches as clergy.
Downloads and Links
- Photo 1: Thomas Schirrmacher in conversation with Archpriest Radu Constantin Miron © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Photo 2: Thomas Schirrmacher in conversation with Archpriest Radu Constantin Miron and his wife © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Photo 3: Pastor Throsten Moll, Magdeburg, and Thomas Schirrmacher © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Photo 4: Dr. Martin Lohmann and Thomas Schirrmacher © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Photo 5: Thomas Schirrmacher in conversation with Dr. Martin Lohmann © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Photo 6: Thomas Schirrmacher during interesting conversations at the prayer breakfast © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Photo 7: Norman Rentrop at the Bonn Prayer Breakfast © IIRF/Martin
Warnecke - Photo 8 and photo 9: View of the audience during the Bonn Prayer Breakfast © IIRF/Martin Warnecke
- Wikipedia entry on Radu Constantin Miron (in German):
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Constantin_Miron
