c. 1997 Religion News Service

MEDFORD, Mass. _ Addressing more than 1,600 people gathered on Tufts University’S Ellis Oval athletic field, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Wednesday (Oct. 29) offered Orthodox Christian theology as a way”toward peace in our time and our common future.””We have much to contribute to the efforts of teachers, researchers and policymakers committed to making religion a force for the prevention and resolution of conflicts that continue to undermine the security of human beings in societies,”said Bartholomew, who arrived Tuesday (Oct. 28) for a three-day visit to the Boston area.

Bartholomew’s address to students, faculty and visitors sponsored by the prestigious the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts repeated one of the central message of the spiritual leader’s month-long U.S. visit _ Orthodox Christianity, with its more than 250 million adherents around the world, must be counted among the major religions of the world.

His address, delivered from a large tent on the athletic field, followed a luncheon meeting with Tuft trustees, faculty and president, John DiBiaggio, along with some students and community leaders. He was given an honorary doctorate in international law.

The small but active Orthodox student population turned out to support their spiritual leader.”Having a religious figure give his perspectives and his thoughts on how to conduct international relations through his religious beliefs will be very interesting,”Estelle Zagaris, an undergraduate international relations major and co-president of the Tufts Orthodox Christian Fellowship, said before the speech.

Later, students said they appreciated the patriarch’s message that Orthodox theology can address international relations issues, adding this would be especially true if Bartholomew’s push for pan-Orthodox unity comes to fruition.

Christian Orthodoxy is divided into more than a dozen independent ethnic and national churches, including Bartholomew’s Greek Orthodox Church and such other bodies as the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.”We’re hoping that if we get everyone together, at least talking, it will soothe some of the tensions in foreign policy,”said Steven Rountos, who serves with Zagaris as co-president of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship.”One of the main issues for Greek Orthodoxy deals with peace between nations and equality between nations,”said Odiseas Papadimitriou, a sophomore who traveled from Brown University in Rhode Island to meet the patriarch.”That was one of the main purposes of Jesus.” Bartholomew offered his theological impetus for foreign policy action as an alternative to what he called the”arid intellectualism which results in excesses of rationalism and one-dimensional secularism”plaguing both religious scholarship and policymaking. “Debates over multiculturalism within the U.S. context, as well as efforts to craft new constitutions in the multiethnic societies in southeastern Europe would be enriched by attention to Orthodoxy’s vision of the person,”he said.

Orthodox theology, Bartholomew said, makes the person central.”The human being as an existential reality can only be a person when he lives in freedom,”he said.

Bartholomew also said that the Orthodox”way of life,”which brings faith into everyday activities, integrates people and communities in a way that demands protection of human rights.”Specifically, the principles of freedom and relationality make Orthodoxy’s conception of personhood fully compatible with democratic norms, regarding individual human rights,”he said.

Bartholomew concluded his address with a pledge to”pursue what makes for peace”and to continue to oversee”works for global peace and international reconciliation.”

MJP END LEBOWITZ