An international group of 16 prominent Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians and church leaders is gathered at Boston College March 22-26 for the third annual meeting of the Malines Conversation Group, a grassroots forum committed to dialogue and unity.

The Malines Conversation Group has support from both the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity and the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. The group takes its name from the Malines Conversations hosted in the 1920s by then Archbishop of Mechelen (Malines)-Brussels Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier. The Malines Conversations were resurrected in Belgium in 2013. Another meeting followed in England in 2014. This is the group’s first meeting in the United States.

The group is expected to discuss the sacramentality of the Word and the Eucharist. Last year’s conversation focused on themes surrounding communion, memory and the future. The group’s first meeting included reflection on socio-cultural, liturgical and ecclesial developments from the time of the Malines Conversations to the present, and on the anthropological dimension of liturgical experience in the two Communions.