wfn.org | Europe's Churches Will Hold Millennium Event on Unity

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

4-February-1997 
97061 
 
      Europe's Churches Will Hold Millennium Event on Unity 
 
                         by Stephen Brown 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--A major European church event is to be organized to mark the new 
millennium, according to the general secretary of the Conference of 
European Churches (CEC), Jean Fischer. 
 
     The event, to take place in the year 2000, would be jointly sponsored 
by CEC and the Council of European (Roman Catholic) Bishops' Conferences 
(CCEE) and would focus on "church unity", Fischer told ENI.  
 
     The decision to organize an "ecumenical encounter" to mark the new 
millennium was taken at a meeting this month in Germany of the CEC-CCEE 
joint committee. CCEE represents Catholic bishops from across Europe, while 
CEC's member churches are the mainstream Protestant, Anglican, Old Catholic 
and Orthodox churches. Between them CEC and CCEE represent the vast 
majority of European Christians. 
 
     CEC and CCEE are already organizing a major event - the European 
Ecumenical Assembly - to be held this June in the Austrian city of Graz. 
About 700 official delegates, including many church leaders and hundreds of 
other participants, will attend.  
 
     The millennium meeting would be on a smaller scale, however, following 
the pattern of previous "ecumenical encounters" between CEC and CCEE which 
had gathered about 100 people, Fischer said. 
 
     No firm decision on the precise date or place had been taken, he 
added, stressing that it would be necessary for the European gathering to 
be carefully coordinated with other initiatives being planned to mark the 
millennium. 
 
     The committee is also considering organizing another event, to be held 
at Easter in the year 2001, when the dates for Easter on Western and 
Eastern calendars coincide. 
 
     This year's annual gathering of the CEC-CCEE joint committee in 
Ratzeburg, Germany, from January 20-22, marked the 25th anniversary of its 
first meeting. 
 
     During that time the two organizations have organized five ecumenical 
encounters and the European Ecumenical Assembly -- on the theme "Peace with 
Justice" -- in Basel, Switzerland, in 1989. The Graz gathering is intended 
to be a follow-up to the Basel meeting. 

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