wfn.org | WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES PLANS 50th ANNIVERSARY

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

Sept. 23, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.9.3.2]

INTERNATIONAL: WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES PLANS 50th ANNIVERSARY

(ENI) 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 last week the celebrations will begin on
19 and 20 September 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, 19 September in Harare, Zimbabwe,
as part of the WCC's eighth assembly. But earlier this year the dates
for the assembly were changed to 3-14 December 1998 to fit in with the
academic year at the University of Zimbabwe where the assembly is to
be held.

The Harare assembly in December 1998, which will also include a
"recommitment" ceremony, will mark the culmination of the celebrations.

According to the new plans, Dutch Churches, and their main national
ecumenical organisation, the Council of Churches in the Netherlands,
will hold a "Recommitment Day" celebration on 20 September, 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, on 13
December 1998.