Home | First lady | Activities of Silvia Gašparovičová | Year 2012 | New Year's meeting with representatives of churches and religious societies
President Ivan Gašparovič and his wife Silvia Gašparovičová adopted on 12 January 2012 at the traditional New Year meeting representatives of churches and religious societies. The meeting was attended also by the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy Church in the Slovak Republic Mons. Mario Giordana.
President Ivan Gašparovič said in his speech that our Slovak Republic as a sovereign, democratic, legal state has its foundation not only in the long centuries of history, but has its basis founded in the Slovak Constitution, which inter alia declares the spiritual meaning of the Constitution based on Cyril-Methodian spiritual heritage and historical legacy of the Great Moravia. "And we even may not realize that the 1150th anniversary of the arrival of St. Kyrill and Methodius is waiting for us. I am convinced that not only churches will be celebrating these two saints and missionaries who brought the Holy Scriptures in a language close to our ancestors. It was not the only message of faith and form of the liturgy, but they also brought a new sophistication, moral and legal norms, which laid the foundations of the new law."
Mons. Stanislav Zvolenský, Archbishop-Metropolitan of the Roman Catholic Church in Slovakia in his speech urged the necessity of respecting the harmonious division of labor time and holidays, especially Sundays, the Lord’s day. General Bishop of the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession Milos Klátik in his speech responded to medialised rather optimistic scenarios for the next social and economic development. "Specific training for the unexpected events cannot be made, but something fundamental, which would help us to cope with the unexpected problems and what we all should have in our spiritual stockpiling, is an attitude which should accompany us in all situations – and this attitude is called Christian hope." Honorary Chairman of the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia Pavel Traubner praised the ecumenical meeting as an expression of democracy and freedom.
New Year’s meeting of the Presidential couple with representatives of churches and religious communities culminated in the common ecumenical prayer for Slovakia in the Chapel of St. Barbara at the Presidential Palace, led by Mons. Peter Rusnák, the Eparch of the Greek Catholic Church in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic. |
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