wfn.org | Slavkov (Austerlitz) confers honorary citizenship on LWF general secretary

[franki@elca.org]

Czech town pays tribute to Dr. Noko's contribution to peace and
reconciliation

SLAVKOV (AUSTERLITZ), Czech Republic/GENEVA, 10 November 2000 (LWI)  - The
general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Rev. Dr. Ishmael
Noko, received recently an honorary citizenship of the town of Slavkov
(Austerlitz) in the Czech Republic.

The honor bestowed on 7 October 2000 is in recognition of Dr. Noko's
endeavors towards reconciliation and peace in an extraordinary way. This has
become particularly clear in the general secretary's commitment to the Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification that was signed by the LWF and
the Roman-Catholic Church in 1999, according to the Slavkov mayor, Petr
Kostik.

Accepting the honorary citizenship, Dr. Noko, who was on an official visit
to the country, underlined that the more than 30 years of ecumenical
dialogue leading up to the signing of the Joint Declaration on 31 October
1999 in Augsburg, Germany had been a reconciliation process. The LWF general
secretary affirmed he would continue to work for reconciliation and peace in
the future. His commitment was to reconciliation within the churches,
denominations and nations as well as between them.

^From October 5 to 8, Dr. Noko visited the Silesian Evangelical Church of the
Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic (SECAC), together with Rev. Dr.
Olli-Pekka Lassila, Europe Secretary of the LWF Department for Mission and
Development. On October 7, he participated in the Fifth Jubilee Ecumenical
Meeting of the Slavkov Conciliation Initiative, the theme of which was \"The
Authority in a Church as the Gift of Ministry\".

Since 1996, the Slavkov Conciliation Initiative has been organizing annual
ecumenical encounters, facilitating the dialogue of different Christian
churches and civic organizations in the Czech Republic together with the
public. Participants are invited to name and discuss existing problems
between them. Furthermore, the initiative aims at reintroducing Christian
values into relations between people. The October meeting concluded with an
ecumenical worship service in Slavkov's Catholic Cathedral. Apart from the
LWF general secretary, others who attended the worship included Bishop
Vladislav Voln² of SECAC, Vojtech Cikrle, the Catholic bishop from Brno,
Jaroslav Skarvada, Catholic bishop from Prague, and Pavel Smetana, the
president of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic.

The town of Slavkov (Austerlitz), 20 km east of the second largest city,
Brno, witnessed on 2 December 1805 one of the most important battles of the
19th century, between the army of Napoleon I and the armies of Austrian
emperor Francis II and Russian czar Alexander I. It was in the Austerlitz
castle that a cease-fire was signed after Napoleon's victory.

At the beginning of his trip, the LWF general secretary visited the
Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Ostrava. The university was founded
in 1991 and, since 1993 has been running a Department of Christian Education
in cooperation with the Protestant church. Twenty-seven students have so far
graduated from this department, with qualification to teach religious
education at public as well as church-run schools. Presently, there are 46
students attending the department's course of studies.

Dr. Noko, in discussions with Dr. Janßcek Zbynek, dean of the Pedagogical
Faculty, underscored the ecumenical significance of the faculty and its
Department of Christian Education, which has Lutheran as well as Catholic,
Adventist, and Baptist students in addition to representatives of other
denominations. Dr. Noko emphasized the LWF's willingness to support the work
of the department by offering scholarships and funding exchange programs.

On October 6, the LWF general secretary participated in the Pastors'
Conference of the Silesian Evangelical church, that was also attended by
Lutheran pastors from Poland, Slovak Republic, and the Lutheran Evangelical
Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic. In his presentation
Dr. Noko introduced the work of the Lutheran World Federation. He underlined
that the mission of the Lutheran church in the Czech Republic was a joint
challenge to the entire global Lutheran family. According to Noko, the work
of the Czech churches is significant for the development of a functioning
civil society.

The LWF general secretary also visited some social service institutions of
the Lutheran church. Silesian Diacony, (the church's social service agency),
was founded in 1990 and has gone through a remarkable development, according
to Lassila, who talked to Lutheran World Information (LWI) after the visit.
Today, more than 250 staff persons of the Silesian Diacony are in many
institutions caring for senior citizens, disabled people, asylum seekers and
victims of crime.

The Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech
Republic, which joined the LWF in 1956, presently has some 40,000 members.

(The LWF is a global communion of 131 member churches in 72 countries
representing over 59 million of the world's 63 million Lutherans. Its
highest decision making body is the Assembly, normally held every six years.
Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council which meets
annually, and its Executive Committee. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical relations, theology,
humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the various
aspects of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in
Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material presented does
not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units.
Where the dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material
may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]

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