•Conference on PCC
in Cluj-Napoca, Romania,
16th - 20th June, 2003WHERE IS THY NEIGHBOUR?
Overcoming violence in families, Curch and society by means
of PCC and supervision
Venue
Bethlen Kata Diaconical Center (Diakonisches Zentrum)
RO - 3400 Cluj Napoca Str. Ponorului Nr. 1
Tel. / Fax 00 - 40 - 264.440510
English summary of the
Conference-report
by Helmut Weiss
There were 38 colleagues participating from various fields of work and from various countries: Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Germany and Switzerland.
Some participants while on their way to the conference, stayed overnight in Budapest/Hungary where they were welcomed and guided by Hungarian friends to visit the "House of Terror", a Museum specifically dealing with the violence acted out in Hungary by the Nazi- and communist Regimes - over 50 years from 1940 to 1990, cruely victimizing fast numbers of the Hungarian people!
The travelling party, including members from Germany, Switzerland and
Slovakia went on to Cluj already June 15th, and were welcomed and well
received with a local, traditional dinner by the friends there.
The very next day the group was given a formal introduction by the Church
Board of the Reformed Church in Transsylvania. The speakers stressed
that, in spite of all, this Church was able to built 35 new church-buildings
in the recent years, setting icons for the conviction that the worshipping
community is the center of church-life at all.
The SIPCC-delegates had the opportunity to explain the aims of the conference
to Bishop Geza Pap, expressing their thanks for the church providing the
conference-venue.
In the late afternoon, the conference started with a scripture meditation
on Genesis chap. 4 (which became the basic scripture for the whole conference).
The traditional local dinner on this day was concluded by the 'Transsylvania'-Baroque-Ensemble
playing baroque music from Transsylvania as well as from all over Europe.
The structure of the conference aimed at interlinking theoretical and practical learning by combining lectures and case-study-work in small groups right after the lectures.
The first lectures was presented by Mónika Balázs, a social worker, lecturing on family violence. She emphazised violence to be present in all social stratas with men more prone to it and with alcohol being a major agent.The case-study-groups dealt with cases of family-violence, showing how much patience is needed to get into touch and to built up trust, in order that the victims as well as the perpetrators may start to talk about their own situation - and not have sham and guilt being the prevailing factors.
The afternoon-work dealt with violence in the communist past.
Participants from former communist countries shared their own as well
as their families' experiences of suppression, exclusion, threats, inprisonment
and deaths.The deep, authentic reports caused strong emo-tions in the
whole group.The 'Westerners' had to learn a lot from this witnessings,
- the 'Easterners' could see how much the actual violence differed in
different regimes.
The next day brought rich experiences by a day's excursion to the
old city of Schässburg. There is still now a German speaking congregation
with members being of German descent [the German population immigrated
to Transsylvania (Siebenbürgen) more then 200 years ago - bringing in
the Lutheran tradition].
The pastor, Rev. Helga Rudolph, hosted the group, and showed the town
as well as the different projects of the congregation. They are very much
engaged in restoring the town after so many decades of decay, including
the new enhancement of a church boarding school. She explained some troubling
issues, too, but she realy stressed those points that were/are hopeful,
especially the ecumenical worship services that prosper, bringing Lutheran,
Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox Christians together.
Later on in Schässburg a Romanian artist of Hungarian descent who now lives in Austria, Istvan Gualay, joined and lectured on his view of "Power and Violence". He explained that in Hungarian language the words for power and violence share the same linguistic root. He as an artist pointed out that power always needs a form, otherwise it will distort into violence. He pleaded for what he called 'creative violence', breaking down with old forms, but giving space to new ways and forms.
The dinner-ceremony that day took place on the group's way back to Cluj in a small village, Georghe Doja, where 2 participants, the pastor and his wife, live and serve as pastors. They explained about the congregation and then served a traditional local meal, excellent as always, in the yard of the parsonnage.
The third day was marked by the presence of the late Bishop of the
Reformed Church in Transsyl-vania, Dr. Kálmán Csiha.
In the morning sessions he shared his experiences under communist oppression.
He was trialed in one of the 'famous' types of trails used by the regime,
so called 'show-trial'. He was sentenced for being a pastor and for his
alledged contacts to foreigns countries.He witnessed about his faith in
God's good guidance. The issue came up how we could contribute to overcome
violence in our times, coming from varous backgrounds and cultures.The
plurality of opinions and attitudes can only be achieved by free-will
contact, exchange and getting to know each other, not at all by any totalitarian,
ideological, fundamentalist etc. means.That is what God urges us for,
to seek out for truth and justice while staying in contact with each other.
In his afternoon lecture, Dr. Csiha dealt with "`Gewalt' from theological perspective" [again: in German the term 'Gewalt' linguistically includes both sides, 'power' as well as 'violence'].The power of us human beings needs a 'corrective power' , i.e. the power of God, otherwise it will remain in itself and mutate into violence.
The third day ended with a rather solemn banquet where a Hungarian group played folk music and engaged the participants on folk-dance!
The morning of the last day was designed for evaluation. The conference ended -again- with a meditation on Gen. 4 and a blessing for the participants' journeys back home.
In summing up we found, especially highlightened through the work in
the smaller group settings, that we need to develop different approaches
to counteract violence in our different contexts, since we start off from
different conditions and different basic assumptions.
We 'Westerners' had to learn that we almost do not know a thing about
live in Romania, Hungary or Ukraine, and especially, that our models of
PCC are hardly to be applied over there!
The colleagues 'from the East' had to learn that a lot of things are up
to their own creativity in order to develop ways and means of help and
care fitting to the parishioners' needs.
On our 'both sides' we became much aware that we need a constant exchange
to better mold a common future.
There was a strong motion to repeat a conference like this, i.e. to bring practitioners of PCC together for a mutual exchange and learning, especially since there are rare chances for training in PCC under the conditions given in former communist countries of middle and south-east Europe.
Die Bilder wurden freundicherweise zur Verfügung gestellt von
These pictures are provided by the courtesy of
Istvan Szoverffi