50 years of Marriage Encounter eBook

Marriage Encounter in Europe

The history of the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement in Europe dates back to 1972.

England

1972 – American couples and priests presented the first weekends in England, Wales and Ireland. The good news spread quickly to Scotland thanks to the enthusiasm of the pioneers.
1999 – The English community, with its rich identity and many connections throughout the world, began to present weekends in Gibraltar.

Belgium

1972 – Flemish priest, Fr. Guido Heyrbaut, experienced his first ME weekend in the United States, and on the weekend of Pentecost that same year, he gave the first ME Weekend in Belgium.
1972 – The French speaking community of Belgium received the gift of the weekend. Belgium, at the cross roads of different cultures, evolved very quickly into two autonomous sister communities: Dutch speaking and French speaking. English and German speaking communities developed over the years.

From Belgium the weekend spread:

• 1973 – France

• 1975 – Indonesia

• 1976 – Netherlands

• 1979 – Germany and Austria

France

After the Weekend was introduced in the northern part of France in 1973, it spread to the east, west and south, and even to the French speaking part of Switzerland. Over the years, the French community has been faced with a society moving further away from Christianity. The leaders needed to ensure WWME could move forward, respecting the culture, but sustaining the WWME identity and vocation. Since 1998, Marriage Encounter in France has been identified as Vivre et Aimer (to live and to love). (The title Vivre et Aimer is also used in the French speaking community of Belgium.

Spain

1975 – Worldwide Marriage Encounter, the weekend, developed by Fr. Chuck Gallagher, was introduced in Spain. It was presented in English for the American families of the military base in Rota.
1976 – The first Weekend was held in Barcelona in Spanish, and the weekend spread quickly. Teams from Spain have also presented Spanish weekends in Switzerland and provided support to this small sister community. The European Secretariat was formed in 1976. At the first meeting of the International Council in 1979, Europe was represented by Ini and Andre DeHont and Fr. Jean-Pierre Mailliez from Belgium. In 1982, after some Portuguese couples participated in a ME weekend in Madrid, their enthusiasm created the opportunity for a Spanish team to give the first weekend in Portugal. The roots of our worldwide movement are strong and deep in Spain, and continue to flourish and nurture a world in need.

Portugal

1982 – First WE by a Spanish team.
1982 – 1983 – 1st and 2nd Deeper weekends by Spanish Teams initiate the formation of Portuguese Teams
1984 – 3rd Deeper Weekend, the first by a Portuguese Team; the Portuguese Community becomes self-supporting and starts participating in the WWME European Secretariat;
1986 (January) – European Secretariat meets in Portugal.
In 1990, the meeting of the World Council of ME was organized and held in Lisbon, under the motto: “We bring treasures in clay pots”.
On May 26, 1991, the first weekend for the Portuguese community resident in Paris was held, and in June 1995 the first, weekend was given in the Azores islands.
With the help of its Paris branch, in January 2001, the Portuguese ME community expanded the Marriage Encounter Weekend to the Portuguese-speaking community in Luxembourg.

Italy

1978 – The first pilot weekend was given in Viareggio in 1976, thanks to a priest who meets many couples in Lourdes from Marriage Encounter in the USA.
1978 – With the help of the community of Croatia, the first weekend was given with an all-Italian team
1980 – From northern Italy WWME spread to Sicily, Calabria and Sardinia.
The Marriage Encounter movement is now active in 13 regions in Italy.

Slavic States

1976 – Couples from Kansas, USA, brought the weekend to Croatia. At that time, Weekends were already being presented in Italy.
2003 – To bring the weekend to Slovenia and Serbia, teams were forced to make secret journeys, with the presentations and booklets hidden in their car. Despite severe political troubles, these courageous pioneers successfully launched Catholic weekends in Northern Serbia (Vojvodina). With the support of the local priests, the local community was able to begin presenting weekends on their own.

2004 – At the request of the military bishop and supported by the Ministry of Defence, weekends for members of the Croatian army began.

Hungary

1983 – The first pilot weekend was given in German in Budapest by a team from the GDR (East Germany)
1984 – The first weekend was given in German with translation by a “Mini-Team”: one couple and a priest for 7 couples. Later GDR and Austrian Teams gave the First Weekend, then the Deeper Weekend and Workshops in German
1985 – The first ‘shared’ weekend was given by Hungarian Couples and an Austrian Priest in Hungarian and in German. Then 17 First Weekends – until 1989 – were given in private homes because of anti-church actions by the secret police: all kinds of religious groupings and organizations were forbidden (giving weekends was not without danger either). For this reason ME adopted the Hungarian name “Marriage Weekend”, because weekend is a neutral, non-suspicious word
1986 – The first weekend was given in Hungarian by a Hungarian Team
1987 – the small community elected the first Hungarian National Team, they participated in the European Secretariat in Salzburg
1991 – after the after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Hungarian community became part of the world Church, and of ME Europe. Fifty couples were able to travel to Leuven from Hungary, and the Presence Weekend was first experienced here. This year, for the first time, the European Secretariat took place in Hungary, in Dobogókő.

Germany

1979 – The first Weekend was given in Germany and not long after, the weekend was secretly introduced to the former German Democratic Republic (better known as East Germany)

2007 – The Northern Region was formed as the 6th German region.
2009 – German speaking Switzerland joined the German community as the 7th region. Switzerland hopes to become an independent community again one day. In Germany, the Marriage Encounter community regularly takes part in Catholic, Protestant and ecumenical Church congresses.

Austria

1979 – After attending a Weekend in Belgium the year before, Fr. Reinhold Ettel and three couples (Hayer, Salomon and Neuberger) gave the first Austrian Weekend in Baden near Vienna.
1982 – After 3 years, already 44 Weekends had been given, 21 couples and 4 priests were able to share their experiences in the weekend-teams.
1984 – The first ME Family Week in summer was established in Tyrol. This additional offer was greatly appreciated by ME couples and families and was extended to 8 summer weeks in the following years. These weeks combine various content about relationship in the morning with holiday time in the afternoon and evening.
2015 – The first ME Summer Week with the same content as the ME Weekend was given in Carinthia for new couples and families, with the support of an additional team who lovingly looked after the children in the morning. Since that time, this kind of ´weekend´ has become an annual event.
2018 – The first non-residential Weekend was given in the parish of Hinterbrühl near Vienna.
2020 – The first non-residential Weekend spread over several weeks was given in Styria – with units of 3 hours each given over 7 weeks.

Ireland and outreaches

In Northern Ireland the political tensions and very present dangers in the 1980s made it difficult to build community. Priority was given to supporting the larger Church community and growth of the ME movement was stalled. As a result, Marriage Encounter disappeared in the South for 10 years until couples from the North, along with a Priest from the South, helped restart weekends in the early 1990’s. Praise God; the two Communities were then united! There were outreaches from Ireland in the 1980s to Kenya and in the 1990s to Denmark and Cameroon. Although the Weekend did not take off in Denmark, WWME thrives today in both African countries.

Ireland continues to give ongoing support to the small community in Scotland by providing team priests and team couples for weekends and also by providing regular communication from the European Councils.

Russia

2011 – Wolfgang and Johanna Mandl from Austria made the acquaintance of a Spanish priest and an Italian priest, both working in St. Petersburg, who helped them take the weekend there.
2012 – The first two weekends were given in St. Petersburg, Russia, by the Mandls, with Fr. Norbert Stigler from Austria, and Fr. Hermann Pint, from Belgium, respectively. The first weekends were presented in German and were then translated simultaneously into Russian.

More and more expansion

1976 – The Netherlands received the Catholic weekend from Belgium, and in 1977 a Protestant Marriage Encounter community began giving weekends. A weekend for young people (age 18-30) was developed and also a weekend for single people.
1983 – Austrian couples and a priest brought the weekend secretly over the border to Hungary.
1988 – The Dutch couple Maria and Ruud van Ooijen with Fr. Kees Maas SVD brought the weekend to Surinam, in response to a request from Mgr Zichem, a bishop in Surinam. Weekends for young and for single people are presented also there. In 2006 the Surinam community was accepted as an associated member of the European Council. The National teams of the Netherlands and Surinam together make up the Supra National Team.
1982 – Spanish couples arrived to present the first weekend in Portugal. The 80s were years of rapid expansion for the Portuguese ME community, which also supported the presentation of weekends in Portuguese in Canada and the USA.
In 1983, some couples and priests secretly came together for the first ME weekend in Hungary in two apartments and with less than ideal conditions. The Austrian Community provided the team. By 1986, a Hungarian team led the first weekend in their own language. Hungary now gives the weekend to Hungarian communities in Ukraine, Rumania, Serbia, and Slovakia.

1990s – The Portuguese community expanded to the Azores Islands and to the Portuguese nationals living in Paris. In 2001, the community also opened their arms to welcome Portuguese nationals living in Luxembourg.
2012 – Austria began reaching out to St. Petersburg in Russia. In May 2017 a weekend was presented in St. Petersburg for the first time totally in the Russian language. In October 2017 this team with Father José Vegas presented the weekend in Krasnojarsk, Siberia.

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