GCSDA
Corruption #13
Serbia: Adventist Church President Meets Orthodox, Roman
Catholic
Leaders
Belgrade, Serbia .... [Miroslav Pujic/ANN
Staff]
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Meeting
with church members in Belgrade, Serbia, Jan Paulsen, president
of the
Seventh-day Adventist world church, made an appeal that
Adventists continue
to be actively involved in the mission of bringing
the gospel to all
people.
Everyone is invited by God to serve in His mission, Paulsen
emphasized.
During his pastoral visit to a part of the world where
the church is
seeing membership growth, Paulsen met with two key religious
leaders,
stressing mutual respect and recognition between
communions.
In a visit to Serbian Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian
Orthodox
Church, Paulsen heard the patriarch underline the historic past of
the
Serbian people, and his concern that Orthodox churches in Kosovo
are
destroyed with little hope of being rebuilt.
Mutual respect must
continue between the Adventist Church and the
Orthodox Church in Serbia in
order to protect religious liberty,
Paulsen said. The conversation between
the two leaders was informal,
amicable and cordial, and covered brief
exchanges on world affairs and
also the Adventist position on
health.
Paulsen also visited Stanislav Hocevar, Roman Catholic archbishop
of
Belgrade. The prelate's numerous questions about the faith and
theology
of the Seventh-day Adventist Church gave Paulsen an
in-depth
opportunity to explain the church's understanding of Bible
teachings.
"Many people came to meet the world church president," said
Radisa
Antic, president of the church's South-East European region.
"Our
believers especially appreciated Pastor Paulsen's focus on church
unity
and developments in the world church. They went home enriched,"
Antic
said.
Other areas that Paulsen visited included Novi Sad, where
he addres sed
a large group of church members in the newly inaugurated
church, as
well as Athens, Greece, and Paphos, Cyprus, where he addressed
the
opening session of the "Building Bridges of Understanding"
conference
on Adventist-Muslim relations. [See ANN report, March 4, 2003]
” --Source: Adventist News Network
