wfn.org | Konrad Raiser Reappointed as WCC General Secretary

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

2-October-1996 
 
 
96381   Konrad Raiser Reappointed as WCC General Secretary 
 
                         by Stephen Brown 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, 
has been reappointed by its Central Committee to a second five-year period 
of office. 
 
     Raiser, a theologian and member of the Evangelical Church in Germany 
(EKD), was elected general secretary by the Central Committee in 1992 and 
assumed his post in Geneva in January 1993.  His first term of office 
expires at the end of 1997. 
 
     Raiser's reappointment, which took place Sept. 18 during a closed 
session of the Central Committee, was announced Sept.19 by Catholicos Aram 
I, the Central Committee's moderator. 
 
     Konrad Raiser's reappointment means he will hold the post until the 
end of the year 2002, which is likely to be a pivotal time in the life of 
the WCC as it renews and rethinks its role. The organization is also facing 
serious financial difficulties, and Raiser and others linked to the WCC 
have suggested that it will need to become a smaller, more flexible 
organization in the years ahead. 
 
     Announcing the election, Aram I said that Raiser had "the full support 
of the Central Committee as he continues his responsibilities as general 
secretary at this crucial juncture of the history of the ecumenical 
movement in general and of the World Council of Churches in particular." 
 
     Before being elected as general secretary, Raiser had already spent 
several years on the WCC staff. In 1969 he took up the post of study 
secretary in the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order.  In 1973 he was 
appointed deputy general secretary of the WCC.  
 
     From 1983 to 1993, he was professor of systematic theology and 
ecumenics at the University of the Ruhr, Bochum, Germany. 
 
     Raiser told a press conference in Geneva that it would be 
"irresponsible," two years before the WCC's next assembly in Zimbabwe, not 
to make himself available to continue the process of "reorientation" of the 
organization. 

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 

--