The Romanian city of Sibiu, which serves as the Capital of European Culture this year, hosts the first European-level ecumenical event in years these days - the European Ecumenical Assembly, attended by almost all Christian confessions across the continent.

The themes approached by the participants at the September 4-9 event will be the big challenges facing European churches and other themes like unity, spirituality, confession, Europe, religion, migration, creation, justice and peace.

The five days event hosts conferences, forums, plenary sessions, common prayers, biblical studies and meditations in the especially arranged spaces.

More than 2,500 official delegates, representatives of all European Churches and EU political leaders attend the event.

Among the most important delegates to the Sibiu convention: the Vatican representative, Cardinal Walter Kasper, Russian Orthodox Church representative, IPS Kirill, bishop of Smolensk and Kaliningrad; President of the Foreign Affairs department of the Russian Patriarchy, Gregorios III, and others.

The program, financed by the Romanian government with 1.68 million Romanian RON, also hosts high European officials including EC President Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the Parliamentary Reunion of the Council of Europe, Rene van der Linden and Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Terry Davis.

The event rests under an environmental tag: each delegate is asked do donate 15 euro to plant a tree to combat carbon emissions caused by their flights here.

The event is the third edition since it takes place every 10 years. The first European Ecumenical Assembly took place in 1989 at Bassel, Switzerland and the second, in 1997 at Gratz, Austria.