wfn.org | WCC NEWS Tutu, Bartholomew, Huber support peace prayer day Sep

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org 
For immediate release - 16/09/2004

PROMINENT WORLD CHRISTIAN LEADERS AND PEACE-MAKERS
AFFIRM THE POWER AND PROMISE OF PEACE

		     Broadcast quality video messages available, see below.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Orthodox Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and the head of the Evangelical
Church in Germany, Bishop Wolfgang Huber are among those supporting an
International Day of Prayer for Peace called for by the World Council of
Churches (WCC) within its Decade to Overcome Violence. The date set for
observance is 21 September.

More than a dozen well-known Christian leaders and peace-makers from all
over the world are affirming churches' and faith communities' work for
peace and justice in a series of inspiring two-minute video messages that
will be made available at www.overcomingviolence.org/peace2004 on Monday
20 September (12:00 a.m. Geneva time).

This year, the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence is focusing on the
United States, under the theme "The power and promise of peace". The
video messages thus also recognize and encourage the struggle of US
churches to witness to peace and justice, both domestically and
internationally.

Personalities joining the International Day of Prayer for Peace through
video messages are:

- Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Anglican archbishop
of Cape Town, South Africa

- Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople

- Wolfgang Huber, chairman of the council of the Evangelical Church in
Germany

- Aram I, catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church (See of Cilicia) a
and WCC Central Committee moderator

- Hanan Mikhail Ashwari, Sydney Peace Prize winner and advocate for
Palestinian rights

- Keith Clements, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches

- Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches

- Karen Hamilton, general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches

- Israel Batista, general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches

- Hildegard Goss Mayr, honorary president of the International Fellowship of
Reconciliation

- Ahn Jae Woong, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia

- Bernice Powell Jackson, WCC president from North America

- Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., president of the National Council of Churches of
Christ in the USA

Within the framework of its Decade to Overcome Violence, the WCC has
called on its member churches - which represent a membership estimated at
about 550 million Christians world-wide - to pray for peace on 21
September or on the Sundays preceding or following that day.
This WCC initiative links to the International Day of Peace declared by
the United Nations General Assembly, a world-wide effort intended as a
day of global cease-fire and non-violence, and as an opportunity for
education and raising public awareness.

The video messages in both webcast and broadcast quality will be
available as of Monday 20 (12:00 a.m. Geneva time) at
http://www.overcomingviolence.org/peace2004 

Liturgical resources for the International Day of Prayer for Peace are
already available at the same website.

See also our press release of 31 August, 2004 at
www.wcc-coe.org > press corner > International Day of Prayer for Peace

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153  +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org 

Sign up for WCC press releases at
http://onlineservices.wcc-coe.org/pressnames.nsf

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more
than 120 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, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary Samuel Kobia
from the Methodist church in Kenya.