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Churches 
4-December-1998 
 
Ecumenical News International 
ENI News Service 
3 December 1998 
 
Eighth assembly signals 'turning point' in life of World Council of 
Churches 
ENI-98-0548 
 
By Stephen Brown 
Harare, 3 December (ENI)--Opening the plenary session of the most important 
ecumenical gathering of the last years of the century - the World Council 
of Churches' 
assembly - Catholicos Aram I of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the 
moderator of the WCC's central committee, described the event as "an 
important signpost for our common ecumenical 
journey and a turning point in the life of the WCC". 
 
The assembly was an opportunity, he said, "to reaffirm and rearticulate our 
common vision as we move towards the next millennium". 
 
More than 900 delegates representing the 332 Protestant, Anglican and 
Orthodox member churches of the WCC, along with more than 3 000 other 
participants and 
observers, are in  the Zimbabwean capital Harare for the assembly, the 
eighth since the 
organisation was founded in Amsterdam 50 years ago. The assembly ends on 14 
December. 
 
The choice of Zimbabwe for the WCC's eighth assembly is particularly 
significant because the WCC gave humanitarian aid in the 1970s to 
Zimbabwean liberation movements then engaged in armed struggle against 
white rule in what was then known as Rhodesia. 
Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, was a key figure in the campaign to 
end white minority rule. 
 
Addressing the assembly, Zimbabwe's acting president, Simon Muzenda, 
speaking on behalf of President Mugabe who is in Europe, paid tribute to 
the aid given by the WCC. 
He also thanked the WCC for its support for the campaign for the 
cancellation of external 
debt owed by the poorest African countries. 
 
The assembly also comes at a particularly sensitive time in the life of the 
WCC. Since the last WCC assembly, in 1991 in the Australian capital 
Canberra, there has been 
increasing tension between Orthodox and other member churches about the 
role and activities of 
the WCC. 
 
A meeting of high-level representatives of the 15 Eastern Orthodox 
self-governing churches, held in Thessaloniki in Greece from 29 April to 2 
May, recommended that the Orthodox churches take part in the assembly but 
"express their concerns" about the 
WCC by not joining in various aspects of the assembly, including worship 
services and common 
prayers. 
 
Asked at a press conference today about relations with Orthodox member 
churches, the WCC's general secretary, Dr Konrad Raiser, said that he 
regretted the 
recommendations of the Thessaloniki meeting, but pointed out that "the 
response of Orthodox 
churches to the recommendations has been very different" and that the 
recommendations had 
"not been unanimously affirmed". 
 
"We will see how Orthodox delegates participate in this assembly and I 
think 
we will be surprised," Dr Raiser said. 
 
He said that the Orthodox churches "constitute a structural minority" in 
the 
WCC "over against the overwhelming majority of Protestant churches". 
 
"They are not asking for an increased quota but to be recognised as one of 
the two major Christian traditions represented in the WCC - Orthodox and 
Protestant. 
 
"They are asking to be heard and to have a possibility of truly influencing 
the agenda of the WCC," Dr Raiser said. 
 
"The Orthodox churches feel that the procedures by which the WCC organises 
itself are shapedby an ethos and tradition of decision-making and 
governance which are 
foreign to their tradition." He said many other member churches shared 
their feelings. 
 
Dr Raiser was also questioned at the press conference about the issue of 
human sexuality. Although the subject is not officially scheduled for 
debate at the assembly, 
the repeated denunciation of homosexuality by President Mugabe, and the 
fact that 
homosexual acts are illegal in Zimbabwe, has caused concern among some of 
the WCC's member 
churches, mostly in Europe and North America. There has also been 
controversy over the fact that 
a local homosexual organisation, Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, is not able 
to 
participate in a special section of the assembly called the Padare (meeting 
place). 
 
Dr Raiser told the press conference that there would be 12 events organised 
in the Padare relating to homosexuality but that GALZ had failed to secure 
the necessary 
endorsement of a member church to participate in the Padare. 
 
However, members of GALZ would be present at the assembly as visitors, Dr 
Raiser said. [693 
words] 
 
 
All articles (c) Ecumenical News International 
Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and 
provided ENI is acknowledged as the source. 
 
Ecumenical News International 
Tel: (41-22) 791 6087/6515 Fax: (41-22) 798 1346 
E-Mail: eni@eni.ch 
PO Box 2100   150 route de Ferney   CH-1211 Geneva 2   Switzerland 

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