Anglican Communion News Service

A new academy for inter religious and intercultural studies which has been launched in Bethlehem is expected to promote relationships between Christians and Muslims.

To be known as Dar Al-Kalima (House of the Word), the academy will serve Christians and Churches in the mainly Muslim countries of Asia and Africa, and will research the theology and church practices of these Christian communities. The academy will also provide information about the Palestinian people in an attempt to break their relative isolation.

The academy is to open this year in temporary premises in Bethlehem, but will have specially designed new quarters by Christmas 1999 when world Christian leaders are expected to arrive in Bethlehem. The buildings, which will also accommodate creative programmes in music and the arts, are being designed as part of a vast renewal of the city of Bethlehem for the year 2000.

The academy, which will be broadly ecumenical in its policy, is being sponsored by Bethlehem's Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church and by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Palestine and Jordan.

A "Concept Conference" for the academy, which ended on 13 October, drew scholars from Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. The keynote address was presented by Bishop Kamal Bathish, a Palestinian Catholic who serves on the Vatican's planning committee for the Year 2000 and on ecumenical committees in Jerusalem and Bethlehem which are planning celebrations. He said the Roman Catholic Church wanted the year 2000 to be a time for increased ecumenical efforts.

Bishop Bathish also emphasised that the Churches of the Holy Land needed to offer direction to the plans for celebrations of the new millennium, and not simply react to the efforts of others.

The President of the Palestine National Authority, Yasser Arafat, said the new academy was especially welcome in Bethlehem. He has taken a personal interest in the development of the academy "which will play a great role in the cultural, scientific and intellectual life not only of Bethlehem but also of all of Palestine".

The academy would, he said in a message read by one of his deputies, provide "cultural interchange and links among peoples and civilisations".

His message also acknowledged that the Concept Conference was being held at a time when the peace process was passing through a "very critical and dangerous stage". According to Dr Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas Church in Bethlehem, the academy will be the only institute of its kind in the emerging state of Palestine. He promised that it would relate closely to scholarly programmes in Jerusalem and elsewhere. He added that Dar Al-Kalima would bring grassroots Palestinians into contact with educators, musicians and artists from all over the world.

The academy would try to build links with the World Council of Churches, the Middle East Council of Churches and with the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches, he said.

"Our methodology will be inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary," he told ENI. "It will be our contribution not only to North-South dialogue but also to South-South and East-West dialogue."

The three departments of the academy will include a programme of contextual theology, as well as music and the arts.

The academy will be located next to the Christmas Lutheran Church on the renovated "souk" or market street, known as Paul VI Street. According to plans for the city, the market street will become a pedestrian mall leading to Manger Square and will connect the Christmas Church with the Church of the Nativity. An area where pilgrims today trudge over broken stone steps will be rebuilt to serve as an outdoor amphitheatre.

Much of the work being done to renovate Bethlehem is being funded by sister-cities around the world. The city became run down during 30 years of Israeli occupation.