“Momentum”

15-5-2026

This issue includes reports, videos, news, articles, and a full coverage of the latest developments of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), as well as the Church, Ecumenical, and social events…

This is in addition to the weekly word of the MECC Secretary General Professor Michel Abs which is entitled in this issue “The Church Washes the Feet of the Barefoot, Inspired by daily life in the Antiochian Levant and the Nile Valley”.

You can check the issue via the following link: https://mailchi.mp/11cefb6e6669/momentum-mecc-weekly-newsletter.

You can also subscribe to the Momentum Newsletter via the following link:
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Inspired by daily life in the Antiochian Levant and the Nile Valley

Professor Michel Abs

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

It is Holy Thursday — the Thursday of the Mysteries.
The Upper Room.

Christ removes His garment, ties the towel around His waist, and bends down to wash the feet of His disciples. Peter refuses, and he hears the severe answer: “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8).

This is not only a historical event. It is divine guidance and a program of action.

When we say that “the Church washes the feet of the barefoot,” we mean that the essence of the Church’s social service is this deliberate bending down toward those whom the road has exhausted.

It is a reversal of the logic of power: “Whoever wants to be first must be servant of all” (Mark 10:44). The Church is measured by the extent to which her clergy bend down.

The core idea is that authority in the Church is not domination. It is diakonia — service.

“Washing the feet of the barefoot” means touching directly the wounds of the weary and heavy-burdened, without mediation and without humiliation.

Washing feet means that I bend down until I become level with you, and I touch your pain with my own hands.

His Holiness Pope Francis called it a “field domain Church.” It leaves the sanctuary, becomes soiled with the dust of the road, and touches the wound.

The theological meaning of this is clear and unmistakable: whoever rejects the Church’s service, or refuses to serve, has not understood the mystery of the Eucharist.

The liturgy that is not completed by service to the barefoot becomes an empty ritual…

Highlighting the Latest Updates Related to the Reception of His Beatitude Patriarch Mar Paul III Nona in Baghdad, In Addition the Preparations for His Enthronement Ceremony as Patriarch at the Head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and the World

Where His Beatitude Patriarch Mar Paul III Nona Will Be Enthroned as Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and the world