Church in Turkey to celebrate 2024 as Year of the Eucharist

Dec 01, 2023

ANKARA: The Catholic Church in Turkey has announced that 2024 will be the Year of the Eucharist for the local Church, celebrated not with grand festivities but instead with an individual choice driven by faith and charity.

“Through the celebration of the Year of the Eucharist, the Church of Turkey wishes to know, love, serve and proclaim the Lord Jesus more and more and to recognise Him present, like the disciples of Emmaus, in the act of breaking bread,” said Archbishop Martin Kmetec of Izmir, president of the Turkish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in a pastoral announcing the special “Year of the Eucharist” beginning on December 3, the first Sunday of Advent, and ending on November 24 next year, the Solemnity of Christ the King.

“Together we wish to deepen the faith of the Church community on this Sacrament through catechesis and other means, to participate more and more actively and consciously in liturgical celebrations, and to remember after eating the Bread of Heaven that we are called to share,” the archbishop wrote, reminding his “dear brothers and sisters” that the “immense gift of God’s love is the Holy Eucharist.”

“This great sacrament, instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper as a memorial of His Passover, is spiritual nourishment for the faithful, a sign of unity and a bond of charity, a promise of future glory. It shows the perpetual fulfilment of the promise of the Saviour who said “I am with you all days till the end of the world.”

Archbishop Kmetec said that during the synodal process, it was emphasised that in Christian communities in Turkey, “Mass is still very important.... (yet) the urgency of arresting the decline in the spirit of unity that occurs in many realities of our Church emerged”.

This is why the Turkish bishops, in confirmation of the statements made at the Synodal Conference in Izmir in October 2022, approved the proposal to “devote a special time so that in all our communities, we may increasingly place the Eucharist at the centre and, starting from it, build new bonds of communion and renew our Christian life and pastoral action”, the archbishop wrote.

During this special time, everyone — bishop, presbyter, deacon, religious, consecrated person, lay person, is invited to ask: “How do I want to live in the best manner this term?” “What concrete choices can and do I make so that the Year of the Eucharist that I am given as a gift of living, would leave a true sign of newness and joy on my life?” -- LCI (https:// international.la-croix.com/)