WELCOME TO THE SHORE OF THE WATER THAT BRINGS US TOGETHER

Archbishop John Vikström

Porvoo Communion Church Leaders' Consultation in Turku 12-17
March 1998
Welcoming speech

Welcome to Finland and its city of Turku. Welcome to the bank of the River Aura, which runs through this city. Welcome to the water's edge, to the shore of the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea.

For us modern Finns, however, water is no longer such a safe and familiar element as it was for our forefathers. We may consider rivers and broad seas to be essentially dividing factors. For our ancestors, however, water was something that brought people together and in this sense united them. Long stretches of land separated people from each other, but water, in turn, enabled them to travel, form relationships and become part of a wider community or context.

Indeed, Finland did not become part of Europe only when it became a member of the European Union. Nor did this take place only when Finnish students brought new ideas from European universities to our country at the beginning of the 16th century. Finland became part of Europe - and, more universally speaking, undivided Christendom - already around the 11th century, when people began to travel by sea between Finland and the rest of Europe.

Water brought us into the cultural sphere the "internal waters" of which are the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. This cultural sphere includes the whole area where each of you comes from, dear participants in this consultation of the Porvoo Communion church leaders. In this area, some may also observe the boundaries of the ancient Viking territories' "internal waters." What is more important than boundaries, however, is the ecclesial communion characteristic of this region.

Another thing which tells us of this communion is this "Cross of Turku," with Christ and the Virgin Mary pictured on it. This cross, which was found in the yard of the parsonage of the Maaria (St. Mary) parish, only a few hundred meters from here, reflects the influence of both the Western and Eastern Christianity of those days.

Here, in the neighbourhood where this cross was found, I find it both an easy and a happy task to also welcome the observers from other churches to this consultation of the Porvoo Communion church leaders. Indeed, the close ecclesial communion brought about by the Porvoo Declaration is not meant for ourselves alone. In our view, the Porvoo Declaration is an ecumenical gift, which, we hope, will also serve a wider ecumenical communion.

Thus, in my capacity as the 53rd successor to St. Henry, who came from England through Uppsala to Finland, and as the present incumbent of his Bishop's See, I welcome you all to this consultation - to our brotherly and sisterly discussions. In so doing, it is essential for me to remind myself and you of the excellent title given to the fuller version of the Porvoo document, "Together in Mission and Ministry." The member churches of the Porvoo Communion share a common task of mission and service within the nations where they live and function and even in a wider area.

We are united by the common calling received in baptism. Thus, besides its manifestations as the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, water also unites us in a deeper sense. In the words of the Porvoo Common Statement, "We believe that through baptism with water in the name of the Trinity God unites the one baptized with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, initiates into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and confers the gracious gift of new life in the Spirit" (32 g)