wfn.org | Leader Wants to Rethink Succession of International Meetings

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

27-August-1999 
99285 
 
    Ecumenical Leader Wants to Rethink Succession 
    of International Meetings 
 
    By Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News Service 
 
GENEVA - Dr. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of 
Churches (WCC), has urged international church bodies to rethink their 
schedules to avoid an "uncoordinated succession" of major church 
gatherings. 
 
    Many of the WCC's 336 member churches also belong to Christian world 
communions, such as the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the 
Lutheran World Federation (LWF). WARC and the LWF, like the WCC, have their 
headquarters at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva. In addition to belonging 
to a Christian world communion, many WCC member churches are also members 
of regional ecumenical organizations such as the Conference of European 
Churches or the Latin American Council of Churches. 
 
    Like the WCC, these bodies hold large-scale assemblies every few years, 
often gathering together many thousands of people, traveling at great 
expense from all over the world. The WCC held its last assembly in December 
1988 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Only eighteen months earlier, two other 
assemblies took place - the LWF assembly in Hong Kong, and WARC's general 
council in Debrecen, Hungary. 
 
    The result of this, Dr. Raiser told a meeting of the WCC's central 
committee in Geneva on  August 26, was that "year after year, we have an 
uncoordinated succession of major international ecumenical meetings with a 
similar structure, parallel themes and the expectation that the churches, 
of course, become actively involved in preparation and follow-up." 
 
    He added that "churches with membership in two, three or even more of 
these ecumenical organizations find it increasingly difficult to respond to 
the multiple demands and expectations, not only in terms of finance, but 
also of human resources." 
 
    He told the central committee that this was one of the reasons why 
there needed to be "a reassessment of the concept and role of the [WCC] 
assembly." 
 
    He later told a press conference that there was no reason why there 
could not be a "common assembly" at which "everything that was not purely 
concerned with institutional matters could be discussed in common." There 
could be separate sessions at such an assembly to deal with the 
constitutional matters of the WCC and the other international church 
bodies, he said. 
 
    Three years ago WARC's executive committee adopted a proposal which 
said that the WCC, WARC and the LWF should examine the idea of holding 
their major assemblies after the year 2000 at the same time and in the same 
place. 
 
    Earlier this year, the LWF's Council - its governing body - was told 
that participation of Lutheran churches in assemblies of the WCC, the LWF 
and regional ecumenical organizations was "becoming a burden financially 
and with regard to personnel resources." It called for further discussion 
on coordinating LWF assemblies with those of the WCC and regional 
ecumenical bodies. 

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