WCC NEWS: Building peace in solidarity with the poor

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World Council of Churches - News

BUILDING PEACE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE POOR

For immediate release: 12 September 2011

A call for solidarity with the poor was delivered to a gathering of
religious and political and civil society leaders from all over the world
by one of the presidents of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The
meeting on the topic “Bound to Live Together: Religions and Cultures in
Dialogue” is taking place from 11-13 September in Munich, Germany.

The Roman Catholic lay community of Sant'Egidio has convened the gathering
in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 11
September 2001 in New York. Among the speakers are many leading figures of
the ecumenical movement, including Dame Mary Tanner, WCC president for
Europe.

Tanner was part of a panel on “Christian Unity, Love of the Poor” that
also saw the participation of Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox
Church, Metropolitan Filaret of the Russian Orthodox Church, Cardinal Kurt
Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Bishop
Munib Younan, president of the Lutheran World Federation and Fr Marco
Gnavi of the community of Sant'Egidio.

Patriarch Daniel expressed the need for “a regional spiritual and social
ecumenism” which would not be based on new theories and concepts, but on
the ongoing tradition of the One Church, the lives of the saints and the
example of the gospel. (Link: #_msocom_1 )

Metropolitan Filaret focused on the spiritual and social roots of the
current financial crisis. Drawing on the social concept developed by the
Moscow Patriarchate, he explained that wealth is a gift of God intended to
enable the recipients to serve the poor.

When misused as a purely personal possession, wealth creates instability
and disorder leading to economic crisis, he added. This condition begins
as a spiritual crisis that infects society and leaves the whole economy
unhealthy.

Dr Mary Tanner spoke on the link between unity among Christians and the
responsibility to care for the poor. Tanner, a long-standing member and
former moderator of the WCC Faith and Order commission, recalled her
encounter with marginalized people in Lima, Peru in 1982 during a meeting
of the Faith and Order plenary commission.

This experience led her to understand the deep connection between
sacramental unity and agreement in one apostolic faith, on the one hand,
and Christians’ common service and diakonia on behalf of those who are
in need.

Bishop Munib Younan, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the
Holy Land, called the churches to consider together ways of collaboration
in support of the poor.

While presenting the work of ACT Alliance (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=296bc0bbd0ecfbd4a46b ) as an 
organization that brings together
Protestants and Orthodox in common humanitarian service and advocacy, he
emphasized the need to use more efficiently the resources that churches
have at their disposal, developing more joint projects. Younan added,
“It is not our name that should be glorified, but the name of Christ.”

The meeting started on Sunday with mass celebrated by Cardinal Reinhard
Marx, Archbishop of Munich, in the presence of representatives of many
Christian traditions. The proceedings continued with a ceremony in memory
of the victims of 11 September 2001.

At the ceremony, Marx said that the United States and the whole of western
civilization as well as the world community, which he defined as the
ultimate target of the attacks, should go beyond direct defence against
violence and find answers that build peace and teach us to live together
in one world.

The participants were also addressed by German chancellor Angela Merkel who
called on all religious people to pray for financial and ecological
sustainability as the world deals with the current crises.

The Sant'Egidio community is dedicated to communal prayer, meditation on
Scripture, Christian unity, intercultural dialogue, social service and
peacemaking.

Sant'Egidio website for the event (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=19db52694953cf46d84f )

Feature story on Peace in the Marketplace at the International Ecumenical
Peace Convocation (May 2011) (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=14523e03d4433a1425e9
)


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 349 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 Olav Fykse Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.



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