Scottish Reformation - Marking the Legacy, Imagining the Future, is an ecumenical conference to be hosted by the Joint Commission on Doctrine at the Storytelling Centre, High Street, Edinburgh, on November 3. It will be opened by Roman Catholic Archbishop Mario Conti. The First Minister Alex Salmond will address the conference.
It begins at 9am until 5.15pm followed by a service at St Giles' Cathedral with guest preacher, the Very Rev Dr John Miller, at 6pm.
The event includes guest speakers such as former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Very Rev Dr Sheilagh Kesting, Rev Dr Alan Falconer, Joint Convener of the Commission, Rev Dr Alison Peden, from the Scottish Episcopal Church and historian, Prof Tom Devine.
Also in the line-up is Prof Paul Murray, an expert in the field of ecumenism who will be sharing the floor with Dr Kesting discussing ecumenical relations today and in the future. Each session is run along the lines of What has the Reformation done for us?
Such an ecumenical event would have been difficult to conceive even some 30 years ago. Mutual distrust and suspicion, caricatures and stereotypes of each other inhibited positive relationships. Through patient dialogue on major theological issues, mutual respect and understanding has grown and developed.
The denominations are striving towards working together in the spirit of the Lund Principle of 1952; that is, that churches should not do apart what they can do together.