wfn.org | Title: WCC space to debate social and ethical issues

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Press Release PR-03-32
For Immediate Use
3 October 2003

WCC offers space for churches to approach social and ethical
issues together

Christians from Orthodox and Protestant traditions will reflect
together on how churches approach social and ethical issues
during an 8-12 October World Council of Churches' (WCC) seminar
in Morges, Switzerland.   

Around 30 participants from WCC member churches, Christian World
Communions, regional ecumenical organizations, and university and
theological centres will use case studies from Orthodox and
Protestant church contexts to look at differences and
similarities in how churches reflect on and respond to moral
issues facing society today.   

The case studies will lead into discussion on the following four
themes:
*  the church and social and political ethics;
*  the church and problems of bio-ethics and ecology;
*  the church and personal and public morality;
*  international relations; problems of globalization.	

Approaches to social and ethical issues were one of the major
areas addressed by the Special Commission on Orthodox
Participation in the World Council of Churches.   

The Commission's final report, received by the 2002 meeting of
the WCC central committee, noted that one of the reasons the
Commission had been created was the "dissatisfaction" of some
Orthodox churches and others with how such issues were dealt with
in the WCC.  

But the report also reaffirmed that the WCC is "a vital forum
for raising and reflecting together on moral issues", and
encouraged it to "continue to provide opportunities for all
churches to consult with one another, and wherever possible, for
them to speak together".  

In this spirit, the principal case study during the seminar will
be "The Orthodox Church and society: the basis of the social
concept of the Russian Orthodox Church" - a pastoral document
adopted by the ROC Jubilee Bishops' Council.  

The seminar is considered as the first in a series designed to
provide a space for the churches themselves to discuss their
different views, decision-making processes and actions together
in concrete terms.  

For further information, please contact the Media Relations
Office,  tel: +41 (0)22 791 64 21 /61 53  

**********

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
Media Relations Office
Tel: (41 22) 791 6153 / 791 6421
Fax: (41 22) 798 1346
E-mail: media@wcc-coe.org 
Web: www.wcc-coe.org 

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