wfn.org | WCC Threatened by "Institutional Paralysis,"

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

16-September-1997 
97354 
 
    WCC Threatened by "Institutional Paralysis," 
    Says Top Official 
 
    by Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--A prominent Orthodox leader and ecumenical official has told the 
governing body of the world's leading interchurch organization, the World 
Council of Churches (WCC), set up 49 years ago, that it was "increasingly 
threatened by institutional paralysis." 
 
    "We have identified the Council too much with structures and programs. 
 ...  Overinstitutionalism made the Council lose much of its creative 
dynamism and vision. Meetings, paperwork, computers and travel have heavily 
dominated the life of this house," Catholicos Aram I told the WCC's Central 
Committee, meeting at the WCC's headquarters in the Ecumenical Centre in 
Geneva. 
 
    Aram, Catholicos of the See of Cilicia in Lebanon, of the Armenian 
Orthodox Church, is moderator of the WCC's Central Committee. 
 
    In his speech, delivered Sept. 11, the first day of the meeting, 
Catholicos Aram praised the WCC's achievements during the Cold War, when it 
helped churches "build bridges across geographical, ideological, racial and 
cultural divisions."  But, in a string of critical comments, he echoed the 
views of some of the 330 member churches of the WCC, especially -- though 
not only -- of  its Orthodox members, who have sometimes complained that a 
Western agenda has been imposed on the WCC by West European and North 
American Protestant churches.  The member churches of the WCC include 
churches from all the mainstream Christian traditions on five continents, 
with the major exception of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
     "The WCC came into existence mainly as a council of European 
Protestant churches and then it became a World Council through the 
participation of Orthodox churches and [churches of] other regions," Aram 
said.  "Fifty years of Orthodox-Protestant ecumenical partnership within 
the fellowship of the WCC did not change the Western and Protestant 
character of the Council. ... Today almost two-thirds of [WCC's] member 
churches come from the South. The Council's ethos, however, remains the 
same. The fact is not due so much to Protestant intention to dominate the 
Council, but rather to Orthodox reluctance to become fully involved in the 
total life and work of the Council and to identify with it." 
 
    He urged the Orthodox churches to stop standing back from the WCC. "If 
the Orthodox are seriously committed to transforming the ethos of the 
Council, which is the source of some prevailing concerns and tensions, they 
have to replace their growing alienation, resignation or indifference by a 
critical approach and constructive participation." 
 
    The comments of Catholicos Aram come at a sensitive time for the WCC 
because of increasing disquiet among Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe 
and the former Soviet Union about some aspects of the WCC's activities and 
priorities. Earlier this year the Georgian Orthodox Church withdrew from 
the WCC. 
 
    The WCC "must be reshaped in order to provide more space to Orthodox 
participation and interaction," Aram said. "We should realize that the 
credibility of the ecumenical movement is in question in some regions. 
Expressions such as `ecumenism is heresy' or `ecumenism is the betrayal of 
Orthodoxy' that we hear in the Orthodox world should not be simply 
ignored." 
 
    Catholicos Aram said that the goal of "consensus," long pursued by the 
ecumenical movement, had failed, and had not brought about "any change in 
the theological teachings and doctrinal positions of the churches." 
 
    "The Council should provide a context where different views interact. 
We are not in the WCC because we agree. We are here precisely because we 
disagree. We are here to enter together in a learning and sharing process." 
 
    Aram made his comments as the Central Committee prepared to consider a 
major restructuring and reform of the World Council of Churches. 

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