wfn.org | WCC Announces Extended Period of Celebrations

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

17-September-1997 
97358 
 
    WCC Announces Extended Period of Celebrations 
    For 50th Anniversary 
 
    by Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--The World Council of Churches (WCC) has revealed plans to extend 
celebrations and events for its 50th anniversary next year and for its 
330-plus member churches to renew their commitment to ecumenism. 
 
    Under the new plans announced yesterday, the celebrations will begin on 
September 19 and 20, 1998, in Amsterdam, the city which hosted the WCC's 
inaugural Assembly in 1948, with a special event to celebrate the 50 years 
of the WCC. 
 
    It had originally been intended to hold a 50th anniversary celebration 
and recommitment service on Saturday, September 19, in Harare, Zimbabwe, as 
part of the WCC's Eighth Assembly. But earlier this year the dates for the 
Assembly were changed to December 3-14, 1998, to fit in with the academic 
year at the University of Zimbabwe, where the Assembly is to be held. 
 
    But according to a paper presented to the WCC's Central Committee in 
Geneva, some member churches had already started serious planning for a 
recommitment day on September 20. It would not be feasible to ask local 
churches to incorporate a special ecumenical service in their calendars 
shortly before Christmas. 
 
    The Harare Assembly in December 1998, which will also include a 
"recommitment" ceremony, will mark the culmination of the celebrations. 
 
    The Assembly -- the highest governing body of the WCC -- is held every 
seven years.  Preparations for the event have been under way since January 
1994, when the WCC's Central Committee chose Harare as the 1998 Assembly 
site. 
 
    However, Assembly plans have been dogged by logistical problems, and 
the WCC has had to change the Assembly dates twice to fit in with the 
calendar of the University of Zimbabwe. 
 
    Lingering uncertainties about the dates have now been resolved, 
according to Densen Mafinyani, general secretary of the Zimbabwe Council of 
Churches (ZCC), who told the WCC's Central Committee meeting in Geneva 
yesterday, September 12, "The dates are firmly signed, concretized. There 
won't be any changes to the dates." The ZCC is playing a key role in 
organizing the Assembly. 
 
    According to the new plans, Dutch churches and their main national 
ecumenical organization, the Council of Churches in the Netherlands, will 
hold a "Recommitment Day" celebration on September 20, enabling local 
churches to "recommit" themselves to the WCC and to ecumenism. (In the 49 
years since its foundation, Dutch Protestant churches have been among the 
strongest and most generous supporters of the WCC.)  Other WCC member 
churches around the world will be encouraged to hold a recommitment day for 
their own congregations on that day or in the period up to and including 
the recommitment day at the Assembly, December 13, 1998. 
 
    The WCC's general secretary, Konrad Raiser, told the Central Committee 
yesterday that the ceremonies would begin in Amsterdam, giving thanks for 
the past of ecumenism,  and end in Harare, looking forward to the future. 
"We would begin in one of the old cities of Europe and end in a young 
nation in Africa. ... Let Harare be genuinely the culmination point of this 
progressive act of celebration and recommitment." 
 
    He said the recommitment day in Amsterdam would be hosted by a black 
congregation, emphasizing the multicultural life of the Dutch city and 
making a link to the Assembly in Africa. 
 
    Densen Mafinyani told the Central Committee that when people gathered 
in Harare they would find that "Africa is a religious continent. Look under 
a tree and you will find people serving Holy Communion."  Asked by ENI at a 
press conference yesterday how much the Amsterdam gathering, which will 
also include a symposium on ecumenism, would cost, and whether the Dutch 
churches or the WCC would pay for it, Raiser said that a budget had not yet 
been drawn up, nor the "distribution" decided, but there were possible 
means of generating funds. 
 
    Raiser also said that having multiple dates for the recommitment event 
would give the Harare recommitment day an extra dimension, as delegates to 
the Assembly would already have taken part in recommitment in their own 
churches. 

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