wfn.org | =?iso-8859-1?Q?Millennium_Fund_Honors_Elenie_Huszagh's_Legacy_a

["Carol Fouke" <cfouke@ncccusa.org>]

Millennium Fund Honors Elenie Huszaghs Legacy as NCC President 2002-2003

NCC Media Contact:
On Site: 917-690-6075 or NCC Newsroom/Business Office at the Jackson Hilton,
601-957-2800
Before/After the Assembly: 212-870-2252

November 4, 2003, JACKSON, Miss. -- The National Council of Churches
announced today that it has launched the Millennium Fund to honor Dr. Elenie
K. Huszagh, Esq., who, as NCC president for the 2002-2003 term of office,
has given leadership during a remarkable period of turnaround in the
organizations life. The Fund, which will undergird the Councils work into
the future, was announced here as the NCCs annual General Assembly, meeting
through Nov. 6,  got underway.

Dr. Huszagh, an attorney and a prominent lay member of the Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of America, took office at a time when the Council was beginning
to recover from a period of crisis. Long plagued by financial woes that
reached the breaking point in 1999, the Council had taken firm steps to
stabilize its finances. During Dr. Huszaghs term, the Council balanced its
budget, while rebuilding its long-term reserves from approximately $2.5
million to nearly $10 million.

To strengthen other dimensions of the organizations life, Dr. Huszagh
organized a special Council-wide look at its basic nature and purpose. At
her initiative, a Substantive Reflection Task Group (SRTG) met throughout
the past two years to stimulate conversation on this topic among
representatives of the NCCs 36 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox member
communions. In-depth discussion occurred at the annual General Assembly, the
NCCs highest policymaking body, which is composed of 280 delegates chosen
by their respective communions, and at the Assemblys Executive Board.
Together, delegates tested each others understanding of what the NCC is,
why they come together in the Council, and what they should be doing,
Huszagh says.

She has likened this conversation to the healing that might take place in a
family that had been stressed and fractured by financial difficulties.
Fiscal recovery was not an end in itself, she says, but leads, if you
will, to an emotional recovery as a Council, a reconnecting of communions
around the faith and a sense of ecumenical purpose and commitment. The
conversation was unusual in that it was not tied to a context of
reorganization or structural change, she says, but was a stand-alone
issue that brought our relationships into focus.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Welsh, top ecumenical officer of the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ), who chaired the SRTG, says, Unexpectedly, it was an
Orthodox laywoman who, in coming to be president of the Council, named the
urgency for us to engage in substantive conversation around foundational
issues in our ecumenical life together. Among these issues, Welsh includes
understanding the relationship of the Council to its member communions,
exploring the goal of the Council and the nature of the unity we seek, and
seeking to clarify both the character and components of being and living as
a community of Christian communions. 

-more-

Elenie Huszagh/Nov. 4, 2003/Page 2

A legacy of Elenie Huszaghs presidency is a Council that better
understands its core values in shaping its future as a community of faith
and faithfulness-to the Gospel and to each other as Christian communions,
Welsh says.

Dr. Huszagh also carried this message of unity widely in the United States,
frequently speaking at assemblies of the Councils member communions. She
was delighted with the uniformly warm and responsive reception she
received, and with the serious questions and serious listening about the
theme of Christian unity that was at the center of her visits. She often
made a point of reminding communions that the Council is not an independent
entity; rather it is 36 communions in a relationship of community. So in
bringing greetings to them from the Council, I was really bringing greetings
from themselves, Dr. Huszagh says.

Occasionally she was called upon to preach, a novel experience for Dr.
Huszagh, who, as an attorney, has been more accustomed to making legal
arguments in the courtroom than theological points in the pulpit. In remarks
that convey her trademark self-deprecating humor, she has said, I quite
enjoyed it. Congregations cant rule you out of order as a judge in a
courtroom might. And they generally dont walk out. If they didnt fall
asleep, that was my measure of success.

During her tenure as president, Dr. Huszagh also represented the Council
internationally. She co-led a major ecumenical delegation to the Middle East
in the spring of 2002. At the invitation of the Middle East Council of
Churches, the group visited Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel and
Palestine, consulting with high-level church and political leaders.  Earlier
she visited with the Cuban Council of Churches while in Havana as a guest of
the Greek Orthodox Church and Greek Embassy there.

In an increasingly turbulent and distressed world, it is important to
connect with ecumenical partners around the globe, to understand and be
understood, to reassure church partners that someone out there cares, and to
determine what if anything we can do to be helpful, she says. The knowledge
that so much is expected of us in so many places, poses a formidable
challenge to the Council, she notes.

Dr. Huszagh received several honors during the past two years, partly in
recognition of her leadership at the NCC. They include an Honorary Doctor of
Humanities degree from Hellenic College/Greek Orthodox Holy Cross School of
Theology, Brookline, Mass; appointment to the Speakers Bureau of the Senate
Democratic Leadership Conference on the issues of civil rights and diversity
initiatives; being named 2002 Ecumenist of the Year by Ecumenical Ministries
of Oregon; and receiving the University of Chicago 2002 Alumni Award for
Professional Achievement.
Dr. Huszagh has represented her communion at the NCC in many capacities over
the past 24 years, culminating in her service as president. She has served
as a Greek Orthodox delegate to the NCC since 1979, except for the years
1989-1992. She also has served on many NCC committees and task groups,
including the Nominations Committee (1996 - 1999), Constitution and Bylaws
Committee (1983-1985), and the NCC committee that from 1986-1987 helped
resolve a conflict between the Campbell Soup Company and the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee. She first became an officer in 1985 when she served a
four-year term as recording secretary, and was installed as president-elect
in 1999.

-end-

---
Send E-mail address changes to: nccc_usa@ncccusa.org