Rome (NEV), October 31, 2016 – Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the promotion of Christian Unity (PCPCU) on October 14, travelled to Piedmont to meet the Turin Christian Churches and visit the “Waldensian Valleys” for a day of ecumenical dialogue and reconciliation. At the invitation of the Interegional Commission of the Diocese for Ecumenism of Piedmont and Aosta Valley, card. Koch started the day with a conference in Turin on “The passion for the Church unity. Scenarios and challenges of the ecumenical dialogue”. In the afternoon, accompanied by the Bishop of Pinerolo, Msgr. Piergiorgio Debernardi, he went to Torre Pellice where he met in private, pastor Eugenio Bernardini, moderator of the Waldensian Board. Here card. Koch visited the historic places of the old autochthonous Christian minority, among which the “Waldensian House” seat of the Synod, the temple, the Waldensian Cultural Centre with its museum, the library and the archives. The Swiss cardinal and the moderator, in view of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, spoke of the event as an occasion to confess the mutual past behaviours. The day ended in Turin with an ecumenical celebration in the cathedral of St. John the Baptist during which the sermon was given by both cardinal Koch and pastor Heiner Blundau, dean of the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Italy (CELI).
