Protestant bishop against ecumenical borders

Huber gegen Abgrenzung

Wolfgang Huber is against a strategy of demarcation in ecumenism. The Chairman of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) who is also Lutheran Bishop of Berlin said on Wednesday in Bensheim. The perception of differences should not be guided by the intention to act against the ecumenical partners and to position one’s own church in distinction from them. The first ecumenical task should be to adhere to what is common between the churches. However, it would be wrong, to loose sight of the different characters of the family members of the church, the Berlin bishop. However, commonality also could be preseverd in difference and could be lived. Huber had a few years ago even coined the term "ecumenism of distinct image". He spoke at a church service to celebrate the move of the Hessian Ecumenical Confessional Institute in Bensheim.

See the Limits to Ecumenism. Huber himself sets the borders and then says there should not be any.