Balamand declaration

The Balamand declaration is a 1993 statement on Catholic-Orthodox relations issued by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, adopted at the seventh plenary session of the commission at the University of Balamand in Lebanon. The document declares the two churches to be sister churches, affirms freedom of conscience and the right of Eastern Catholic Churches to exist, and states that uniatism, the union of local churches with Rome as a method of achieving unity, is no longer an acceptable path. It was drafted in part to address the forced conversions and church closures that took place in Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1949. The declaration proved controversial with both sides, with Eastern Catholics and Orthodox each reading parts of it as favoring the other. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/