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Esteemed refugees, esteemed religious communities and religious leaders,
fellow brothers and sisters,
As we gather in this chapel of the Ecumenical Center I warmly welcome each and everyone of you.
We gather in prayer, we gather to listen to God, the Divine, and to one another.
We come together to listen to refugees, their life experience, their wisdom and insight.
We gather to listen to spiritual and religious wisdom. There we find a clear vision and a strong hope: God puts center stage those people who have been displaced. God deeply cares for them, is in solidarity with them, even more: God identifies with them. In this way, God empowers refugees and displaced people and gives them agency. We as religious people are called to stand in solidarity with refugees and displaced people.
In the time of Advent and Christmas, we Christians remember the very beginning of the Jesus story, which actually starts with the experience of multiple displacement and with the desperate search for shelter and protection:
Mary was in the final stage of her pregnancy when she had to move with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, as they the political powers had ordered that everyone needed to go to their place of origin to register at the census. The gospel of Luke tells us that as they arrived in Bethlehem “there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Mary had to put her new-born child in a manger.
Soon, the situation became even more dramatic, and Joseph, Mary and Jesus had to flee to Egypt. In the Gospel of Matthew we read: “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.” (Matthew 2:13-15)
Let me point out that the Biblical texts narrate the experience of displacement, and they are not shy to mention the political as well as the spiritual dimensions of the displacement experience. The census, ordered by governor Quirinius, and the persecution of male children, ordered by King Herod caused the displacement. Furthermore, the texts spotlight the spiritual dimension, the angel, who calls the family to move in order to save their lives. God intervenes in order to protect lives.
I give thanks to those people in Bethlehem and those in Egypt who provided sanctuary for Mary, Joseph and Jesus at the time.
Moreover, I give thanks today to all those local communities and religious communities who provide sanctuary for refugees and internally displaces persons today. Welcoming a displaced person is a holy moment.
As the right to asylum and to protection is increasingly undermined, we as people of faith cannot stay silent, but have to speak out, join hands in interreligious solidarity and act together for the wellbeing and protection of refugees and displaced persons.
H.E. Archbishop Dr Aykazian Vicken,
Vice-moderator of the WCC central committee
