World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org For immediate release - 29/11/2006 12:26:41 PM
WCC WELCOMES LWF-WARC VIEWS ON FEASIBILITY OF AN "ECUMENICAL ASSEMBLY"
In a statement released today, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has welcomed the affirmation that, after 2010, the "LWF and WARC would no longer hold global assemblies of their own, given a satisfactory developmen t in this area". The affirmation was made by a joint meeting of the officers of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) with the executive committee of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
The recently established Joint Consultative Group between the WCC and various Christian world communions will meet in May 2007, and is "expected to significantly strengthen the wider discussion on the feasibility of an 'ecumenical assembly' in 2013, and to advise the WCC central committee, when it meets in February 2008," the WCC says.
The LWF-WARC communiqué issued on 18 November in Chavannes-de-Bogis, Switzerland, affirmed that "the future of ecumenical assemblies is a matter of crucial importance for conciliar ecumenism in the 21st century and there is an urgent need for a new type of assemblies, in which the broad, multilateral nature of the ecumenical movement is expressed more substantially".
The full text of the WCC response to LWF/WARC is available on the WCC website at: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2760
The full text of the communiqué from the meeting between the WARC Officers and the LWF Executive Committee is available at: http://www.lutheranworld.org/LWF_Documents/Luth-Ref_Communique-18_Nov_2006. pdf
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
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.