World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org For immediate release - 13/02/2008 03:33:20 PM
MODERATOR URGES PERSEVERANCE TOWARD UNITY
Speaking during the Lenten season that builds to the central Christian hope of the risen Christ, World Council of Churches (WCC) moderator Rev. Dr Walter Altmann addressed the Central Committee on Wednesday 13 February with a renewed call to "visible unity" in the church.
He also issued a challenge to Central Committee members, noting a variety of "critical questions" that the ecumenical movement must face if it is to succeed in moving toward that goal.
Unity in Christ, Altmann said, is a gift from God. Receiving that gift and responding to it "in the koinoniaof brothers and sisters in the one church," he said, is the primary purpose of the WCC.
The world has changed significantly in the 60 years since the WCC's creation, Altmann said, but the work of ecumenism toward unity remains the same. "That has been our calling throughout those years and will continue to be our calling in the years ahead," he said.
The moderator grounded his address in history, quoting several sections from the WCC Constitution, originally drafted at the WCC's First Assembly in 1948. Altmann said its principles remain fundamental to the ecumenical movement today. He also highlighted key phrases from WCC Assemblies held over the past six decades and from ecumenical events predating the WCC's founding, as well as the contributions of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions.
During this 60th anniversary year, Altmann said the "main question to be raised" is not one that looks inward, but rather outward: how well the WCC "has served and continues to serve the (wider) ecumenical movement".
In the final part of his address Altmann named some of the "many, many questions" raised about ecumenism, such as whether there are too many statements with too little action, whether churches are truly willing to cross institutional boundaries, and whether the prophetic voice of the ecumenical movement has "not become rather weak" and lost its passion.
"Looking into (our) history we might, in a spirit of repentance, acknowledg e that, in spite of clearly discernible advancements in the ecumenical journey, we also have failed again and again, at least in not being able to discern with greater clarity the way the Holy Spirit is leading us", Altmann said. "But our response cannot be one of giving up. That would be a betrayal of our vocation".
He urged instead a "holistic" approach, such as that of the early Christian church in Acts 2:42. That church, he said, sought authentic faith in community as it persevered through challenges.
"The ecumenical movement most needs those who are able to persevere", Altmann concluded. "Let us ask the Holy Spirit to grant us that gift of perseverance, and the willingness to move ahead".
Rev. Dr Walter Altmann, president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil since 2002, was elected WCC moderator at the WCC's Ninth Assembly in 2006. This is his second Central Committee meeting as moderator.
The full text of the moderator's address is available at http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=5569
More information on the WCC Central Committee meeting is available on the WCC website at http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/cc2008.html
Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363media@wcc -coe.org
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 347 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
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