wfn.org | WCC executive committee meets in Denmark

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Press Release, PR-02-07
For Immediate Use
12 February 2002

WCC executive committee meets in Denmark
Opportunity to strengthen and increase ecumenical cooperation

The forthcoming meeting of the executive committee of the World
Council of Churches (WCC) will be held in Nyborg, Denmark, 19-22
February at the invitation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Denmark and of the Church of Denmark's Council on International
Relations. It is the first time since the WCC's eighth assembly,
in Harare, Zimbabwe, 1998, that the WCC executive committee is
meeting outside Geneva.  

Referring to increased ecumenical cooperation with the churches
in Denmark and the Nordic countries during recent years, WCC
general secretary Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser welcomes the invitation
to Denmark as an opportunity to "give visibility to these
relationships and to strengthen them". "Among matters of
ecumenical concern that have been high on the agenda of the
churches in Denmark is the question of ecumenical solidarity with
churches in Israel and Palestine and, more generally, with the
Palestinian people. It is quite appropriate, therefore, that
during its meeting in Denmark the executive committee should
consider the scope and framework of the Ecumenical Accompaniment
Programme in Palestine and Israel," Raiser adds.  

On 17-18 February, before the meeting in Nyborg, the members of
the executive committee will have the opportunity to learn more
about the life and work of the churches in Denmark. Exposure to
three different areas of church work - interfaith dialogue,
social work/diaconia and Christian education for children - are
part of the pre-meeting visiting programme in Copenhagen, which
starts with a eucharistic worship in the Lutheran cathedral of
Copenhagen on Sunday, 17 February.  

Welcoming WCC executive committee participants from all over the
world is an opportunity for us to share what we have received as
church and to show hospitality, says Rev. Ane Hjerrild of the
Church of Denmark's Council on International Relations. "For us,
this visit is a chance to be open to the reality of Christians in
other parts of the world... to receive information and
inspiration as well as to share our reality with them. For
Christians in Denmark, who are mainly Lutheran, it is an
opportunity to meet people from different denominations as
brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ... Faced with differences
within our unity, we will also have the opportunity to recognize
our own situation, our own gifts, our own possibilities and,
maybe, our own shortcomings," Hjerrild concludes.  

The WCC executive committee has general responsibility for
monitoring and overseeing the ongoing programmes and activities
of the WCC. It comprises the moderator of the central committee,
His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the See of Cilicia of the
Armenian Apostolic Church (Antelias, Lebanon); its two
vice-moderators, Dr Marion Best and Justice (Mrs) Sophia O.A.
Adinyira, who also preside over the programme and finance
committees of the central committee; and 20 other members. 

For further information, please contact Media Relations Office,
Tel.:  (+41.22) 791.61.53 

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
Media Relations Office
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Fax: (41 22) 798 1346
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Web: www.wcc-coe.org 

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