Lift Up Your Soul into the Highest – Eucharistic Conference in Esztergom

A special addition to our thinking about the Eucharist are the perceptions, traditions and practices of the Christian communities. The traditions and the theology of the Orthodox Churches shed light on such points of our Eucharistic thinking, which have a smaller emphasis in the Latin theology and practice.

The perception of our Protestant brothers and sisters about the communion is not only important to understand the old polemics, but rather it helps the deepening of today's dialogue. The way, on which dialogue shall proceed is marked by the better understanding of each other's perceptions and the deepening of our love for Christ, and not by forgetting or understating our differences.

I would like to thank to all the magnificent lecturers, who held a speech in this conference: our Jewish brothers, the distinguished representatives of the Orthodox and Protestant Churches and all the Catholic lecturers, who greatly help, so that in two years the International Eucharistic Congress shall be a feast of friendship and love.

With these thoughts I would like to wish success and blessing for this conference!

"How beautiful and magnificent is, when brethren think together" - started chief rabbi Alfréd Schöner. First he talked about the synagogue of Esztergom (today the building houses cultural institutes - ed.), where we still can see the two stone tablets, but the ten words are not on them anymore. They went up to heaven, but also remained in the souls of the people.

The Haggadah, the only liturgical and prayer book used outside the synagogue - which can be illustrated too - existed in many forms with a variety of contents. Among others, rabbi Alfréd Schöner presented the Sarajevo-Haggadah, created in Barcelona, in the 14th century. This in an illustrated biblical book from the creation up until the death of Moses. The Budapest-Haggadah from the 14th century is also known from the collection of Dávid Kaufmann. The "Bird-Headed" Haggadah was created around 1300. Since depicting humans was forbidden, the human heads were replaced with birds' heads. The first printed Haggadah was made in 1526, in Prague. From the Hungarian Haggadah's the first sentences of the book of Emil Roth from 1942 are: "There is one God, there shall e no idols; one is the man, there shall be no slaves" The so-called OMZSA-Haggadah cross-checks the greatest archaeological discoveries of that time with the Jewish tradition. The Zionist Haggadah, published in 1948 answers the question "What is the difference between this night and the others?" with the response: "Nothing. The dawn is still far away." The Pesach-Haggadah Is a translation from 1999; it was published in 2007, translated by rabbi Róbert Frölich.

"You shall not forget your father's teaching, and the sacred texts, you heard from your mother. With your eyes look into this earthly reality, but lift up your soul into the highest and look for the Almighty" - concluded rabbi Alfred Schöner his lecture.

Rabbi Tamás Verő, the chief rabbi of Buda held his lecture with the title: "Jewish family liturgy outside the Seder - meals, table blessings, prayers." According to the tradition the table blessing were introduced by Abraham. According to the well-known story from the Bible he asked his guests that they give thanks to the eternal God, not him.

In every Jewish household, they follow the traditions differently. The Jews living in this world practice their faith in many different ways. The Ashkenazi or the Sephardi Jews also follow a different tradition. According to the tradition the morning prayer was introduced by Abraham, the twilight prayer by Isaac, and evening prayer by Jacob. The day starts in the evening, so the evening prayer is the first one. To say a public prayer at least ten Jewish men are needed. The backbone of the thanksgiving are the Söma and Amida prayers. Mondays and Thursdays in the morning they also read from the Torah.