This year, for the first time, the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen and the Institute for World Church and Mission are conducting an international summer school abroad. The venues are Hekima University College in Nairobi and the Diocese of Nakuru. Ten students each from Sankt Georgen and Hekima College will experience and reflect in Kenya how to be church across national and cultural boundaries.

 

The summer school starts with a one-week “exposure” phase in the diocese of Nakuru, about 150 km northwest of the Kenyan capital. During this phase, the participants live with local host families and gain insights into the reality of Kenyan life as well as current social and ecclesiastical topics and problem areas. The practical experiences flow into the subsequent “Inclosure” phase at Hekima University College, a college of Catholic theology founded in 1984 in Nairobi. Thematically, the current synodal ways and processes are taken up, which want to decentralize decision-making in the Catholic Church and strengthen synodality.

 

The synodal initiatives not only carry a democratizing momentum into the church, they are above all an intercultural enterprise. Especially in questions of decision-making, cultural imprints play a major role when actors from different continents and cultures come together. Therefore, in exploring possible concretions of a synodal church, special emphasis will be placed on intercultural challenges. The aim is not only to study the “catholicity” of the church in the sense of unity in cultural diversity theoretically, but to let it be experienced practically between the participants from Germany and Kenya.