The voice of unity

As one of the most important seasons in the Christian calendar comes to an end, Mildred Fernandes looks at efforts being made by the expatriate Christian community in the Emirates to forge a common bond

The classic Christmas carol never sounded so good. For the finale of the Ecumenical Group of Dubai's carol singing service last week, four choirs sang Silent Night in English, Norwegian, Malayalam and English simultaneously.

The lyrics may have been jumbled, but the unity came through loud and clear.

The last month has been a remarkable one for the expatriate Christian community in the UAE: A newly-arrived British Anglican pastor attended the opening of the first Mar Thoma Syrian Church in Dubai, a Catholic priest addressed that congregation in Malayalam and a Syriac Orthodox priest attended the bilingual consecration Mass of the new Catholic Church in Jebel Ali.

The carol service on Christmas weekend capped the month of interdenominational gestures.

None of these things would have been imaginable three decades ago, when the liberal policies of the rulers and the people of the Emirates made it possible for Christian expatriates to set up their first churches in the UAE, an Arab country with an entirely Muslim citizenry.

It is a tribute to the UAE's tolerant leadership and society that the number of Christian churches has grown, and with it the number of new denominations and church groups – the Baptist church, the United Christian Church and the Church of Latter-Day Saints among them.

This growth has brought about its own set of challenges. Due to the demographics of the UAE's expatriate population, pastors here need to reach out to shifting congregations segregated by race, ethnicity and language.

Church leaders squeezed between a busy society and the needs of thousands of parishioners are often hard pressed to reach beyond their own flocks.
That is slowly changing.

The ecumenical movement for Christian unity that has taken root around the world and at the highest level of religious orders is slowly gaining ground in the UAE and around the Gulf.

Ecumenism aims to build a sense of community between churches, including those that have had historic tensions and differences and those that have never had any relationship with each other.

In the West, church unity has come to the rescue of churches that are experiencing dwindling attendance, neighbourhoods without churches, and a lack of pastors. That is not the case here.

"Christian unity tends to be strongest in places where the church is weak," said Rev. Peter Roberts, the Anglican chaplain of the Holy Trinity church in Dubai. "Here, the church is vibrant and exciting, with a lot of people of deep faith."

Despite the strengths of the individual churches, there are advantages to their coming together. United churches can take a strong stand on the community's social and economic issues.

The Lebanon-based Middle East Council of Churches, for example, has programmes to aid Palestinian refugees and undertakes relief work in Lebanon and in the aftermath of the Gulf War.

In the UAE, those concerns translate into social care, particularly youth outreach and aid to migrant workers. The MECC in the Gulf lists social work and dialogue as its main missions in addition to ecumenism.

"We are not interested in closing any church down, but we are interested in lifting them all up," said the Rev. Rolf Pearson, Gulf liaison officer for the MECC. "How can you expect anyone to believe in us if we are indifferent to one another, or fighting with each other?"

Rev. Pearson and a dozen others form the nucleus of the Ecumenical Group of Dubai, which was established little more than two years ago. To date, the group has held ecumenical workshops, seminars and prayer meetings – one in the wake of the September 11 attacks – and has great hopes for the future.

"I see signs here that are positive," said Rev. Pearson, who has been in the UAE since 1997. "The Catholic bishop's recent encyclical to parishes stressing the need for ecumenical dialogue, the church complex in Jebel Ali and especially the arrival of Peter Roberts."

Rev. Roberts, as head of the Trinity Church, oversees no less than a hundred different Christian groups who worship in the Trinity complex.

A vital part of his job, he said, is to challenge all those who use the Trinity compound to work together.

"In order to have a Christian dialogue, the first step is to recognise each other as a Christian," he said. "At the end of the day, we have to realise that different is not better or worse – it is just different."

Last week's carol service was a measure of that diversity. Eleven different church groups, ranging from the Church of South India to the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church, sang in a variety of languages and using a variety of musical accompaniments from the tabla to cymbals.

Ecumenism affords churches the chance to learn from each other, and the Anglican pastor finds there is a lot to learn from the neighbouring Catholic church of St. Mary's, despite the rocky history between the two mother churches.