Central Europe holds meeting in Warsaw

The Central Europe Regional Meeting was held from 31 January to 2 February 2000 at the Orthodox Theological Seminary here at the initiative of Mr. Bohumil Voprsalek, SYNDESMOS Central Europe Regional Representative [now Deputy Secretary General of SYNDESMOS]; the Brotherhood of Three Vilnya Martyrs, Minsk, Belarus; and the Warsaw Orthodox Theological Seminary. The meeting gathered representatives from SYNDESMOS member organisations and theological schools in the region.
The main purpose of the gathering was to elect a new Central Europe Regional Representative, a position which became vacant when Mr. Voprsalek took the position of SYNDESMOS Deputy Secretary-General. Apart from the election of the Regional
Representative and confirmation of the Regional Committee's membership, the meeting also provided an opportunity for participants to get acquainted and to discuss the needs and possibilities of youth organisations in the region. A portion of the programme was dedicated to a detailed discussion on how SYNDESMOS member movements and partner organisations could cooperate more effi-ciently.
The programme included presentations by par-ticipating movements and theological schools. Mr.Misijuk, Ms. Hookway, and Father Jerzy Tofiluk, Dean of the Warsaw Seminary, also gave presentations.
The election for Regional Representative took place on 1 November. Ms. Olga Oleinik, a member of Belarus' Brotherhood of Three Vilnya Martyrs, was elected unanimously. The confirmation of the Regional Committee followed, as well as the election of another member of the Regional Committee to replace Ms. Oleinik. Members of the Regional Committee include Jan Krivka, Czech Republic; Dimitri Gorbacev, Lithuania; Pawel Zelezniakowicz, Poland; and Jan Holonic, Slovakia.
Meeting participants also took part in two working groups on youth movements and on theological schools. In the youth movement working group, each participant introduced the work of his or her organisation in detail, exchanged calendars of events for the year 2000, and planned a joint regional event scheduled to be held in Belarus at the end of Sep-tember. The theological schools group discussed the idea of establishing an Association of Theological Schools. Group participants noted that the theological schools are eager for closer cooperation to enable exchanges of students, professors, programmes, and lecturers. While to a certain degree SYNDESMOS provides a venue to realize some of these aims,
its resources and time are limited.
A meeting with His Beatitude, Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland, was held on 2 February before the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Meeting of our Lord, which meeting participants attended. It was very symbolic that the meeting ended on the day when SYNDESMOS commemorates its World Day of Orthodox Youth.