wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Eight new member churches - now 347 in total

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

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 16/02/2005

EIGHT NEW MEMBER CHURCHES, BUT TOTAL WCC MEMBERSHIP ONLY INCREASES BY FIVE
- TO 347

Eight churches - from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean region
- have been received into the fellowship of the World Council of Churches
(WCC), but the total number of the Council membership increased from only
342 to 347, since another five member churches have merged into two joint
memberships.

At the beginning of its 15-22 February meeting, the WCC central committee
welcomed the following five churches as new WCC members:

- Evangelical Baptist Church of Angola
- African Church (Nigeria)
- Protestant Evangelical Church of Guinea
- Methodist Church in Indonesia
- Baptist Convention of Haiti

In addition, three churches were received as new associate members:

- Association of Evangelical Reformed Churches of Burkina Faso
- Presbyterian Church of Colombia
- Methodist Church of Puerto Rico.

Two joint membership applications were also accepted by the central
committee:

- Protestant Church in the Netherlands
- Moravian Church British Province and European Continental Province of
the Moravian Church (EFBU).

The first is the result of a merger between what were formerly the
Netherlands Reformed Church, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, and
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, all
three of them WCC members.

The second was created from a merger of the European Continental Province
of the Moravian Church with the Moravian Church British Province, both
individual members of the Council.

There are two pending cases of churches which have expressed a desire to
leave the fellowship of the WCC: the Evangelical Methodist Church of Costa
Rica (Costa Rica); and the International Evangelical Church (USA).

Six other churches have formally completed the membership process and are
expected to be received into the WCC fellowship immediately after the
ninth assembly, which their representatives will attend as observers.

Churches applying for membership in the WCC must fulfil a number of
criteria. These include a minimum membership of 25,000 members, and the
requirement that they be working ecumenically in the region in which they
are situated. Churches with fewer members, or which express a desire to be
in associate membership, may be accepted in this latter category by the
central committee. At least one visit by an ecumenical delegation is made
to the church before the application is accepted.

New membership rules are expected to be adopted by the central committee
for presentation to the WCC's forthcoming 9th assembly in Porto Alegre,
Brazil, in 2006.

Additional information on the churches received into the WCC fellowship is
available at:
www.oikoumene.org > Central Committee

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in
more than 120 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, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.