wfn.org | Death of Ecumenist Deprives Africa of a Key Defender

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14-April-1999 
99145 
 
    Death of Ecumenist Deprives Africa of a Key Defender 
 
    by Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA-The World Council of Churches (WCC) has expressed "profound shock" 
and deep sorrow over the unexpected death of a key African ecumenical 
leader, Dr Aaron Tolen, a former president of the WCC and member of the 
Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. 
 
    Tolen died on April 7 in Yaounde, capital of his native Cameroon, 
following what his family described as a "cerebral vascular incident."  He 
was 61 years old. 
 
    By profession a political scientist, Tolen's entire adult life was 
linked to ecumenism, especially the WCC, in which he played a major role in 
recent decades. 
 
    Tolen became involved in the ecumenical movement in the 1960s.  From 
1969 to 1974 he was  secretary for Africa and Madagascar for the World 
Student Christian Federation (WSCF).  At the same  time he began an 
association with the WCC which was to last for the rest of his life, 
serving initially as a member of the executive committee of the WCC's 
Commission of the Churches on International Affairs. 
 
    From 1976 to 1983 he was moderator of the WCC's Commission of Churches' 
Participation in Development, and from 1983 to 1991 he was a member of the 
WCC's central committee, playing an important role in which "his skills as 
a professional political scientist were put to great use," WCC general 
secretary Konrad Raiser said in a public tribute shortly after Tolen's 
death. 
 
    As one of the presidents of the WCC from 1991 to 1998, Tolen 
represented the WCC at many major meetings.  "In 1993 he was a member of a 
delegation of Eminent Persons to South Africa to monitor the situation in 
the run-up to the first democratic elections in that country," Raiser said. 
"In October 1994 he headed the delegation of Eminent Persons visiting the 
U.S. for hearings on Racism as a Violation of Human Rights.  He also led 
ecumenical delegations to Burundi in 1995 and to the Democratic Republic of 
Congo (then Zaire) in pursuit of peace and reconciliation.  On all those 
and many other occasions, Aaron provided valuable leadership and made the 
ecumenical voice heard and respected." 
 
    Tolen was also a forthright champion of the African cause and had a 
life-long commitment to the search for a peaceful, just and democratic 
society in Africa.  During a major WCC world conference held in Salvador, 
Brazil, where millions of Africans in previous centuries were sold as 
slaves, Tolen called on Africans to "have the courage" and to recognize 
that "by selling our sisters and brothers as goods," Africans shared in the 
responsibility for the slave trade.  The failure to acknowledge this 
situation was one reason, Tolen believed, for some of the problems facing 
Africa today. 
 
    In his tribute, Raiser said: "Aaron was God's precious gift to the 
ecumenical movement in general and to the World Council of Churches in 
particular.  His distinguished service and contribution to the life and 
well-being of the ecumenical movement spans a whole generation.  For 
30 years he dedicated his life and abilities to promoting the unity of the 
church and of humankind.  He generously put his professional skills and 
gifts at the disposal of the ecumenical movement." 

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