ECUMENISM
WCC: new General Secretary electedThe Norwegian pastor and theologian rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, 48 years old, has been appointed 7th secretary general of the Ecumenical Council of the Churches (WCC). He was appointed yesterday afternoon in Geneva by the Central Committee of Wcc. Tveit is the youngest secretary general in the history of the world ecumenical body that gathers 347 member Churches in over one hundred countries, representing about 400 million believers. “I feel this task is really God’s call. I think we have a lot to do together”, Tveit said in his acceptance speech in front of the Central Committee. He highlighted “the spirit of unity that has dominated the whole election process and expressed the hope that it will keep reigning over their joint walk”.Tveit asked the Committee members to keep praying for him. Since 2002, rev. Olav Fykse Tveit has been secretary general of the Council of the Church of Norway for ecumenical and international relations. He is also a member of the “Faith and Constitution” Committee of WCC, the only body of the Ecumenical Council of the Churches that the Catholic Church is a member of as well. Tveit was one of the two nominees that turned up at the election today. The other one was rev. Park Seong-won, a Presbyterian theologian from South Korea. Tveit will replace the resigning secretary general, rev. Samuel Kobia, who in February had informed the Central Committee, the highest governing body, that he would not hold the position for a further mandate. Kobia had served the Wcc as a secretary general since 2004.In his first press conference, the Rev. Tveit also spoke of the relations between the World Council of Churches and the Catholic Church which it is not a member of the WCC but “has long maintained a working relationship with the organization”. Tveit said he considered this relationship one “of the crucial relations for the WCC”. Ecumenical Patriarchate: Day for the CreationA firm condemnation of the rationale that has been pursued so far in economy and finance, considering human progress to be just “a hoarding of wealth and an immoderate consumption of the resources of the earth”. “A question we must answer is written on the face of every starved child: why?”. The question is asked by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, and echoes in the message written for the Day for the Protection of Creation, that the Orthodox world too celebrates tomorrow, 1st September. The Day – the Patriarch writes – is an opportunity to rethink of the past and repent for all that we have and have not done for the protection of the earth: let’s look to the future and let’s pray for wisdom to guide us through all that we will think or do”. The message focuses its reflection on the economic and financial crisis that has affected the world in the last 12 months and that, according to the Patriarch, now offers a chance “to address problems in a different way”. “We have turned the market – Bartholomew writes – into the centre of our interests, our work and our life, forgetting that this choice of ours would have affected the life of the future generations”. In addition, the message contains a wish for the UN Conference on Climate Change that will be held in Copenhagen in December.Prayer Week: the document publishedThe evangelising mission of the Church and the unity of Christians. This “binomial” will be the focus of the Week of Prayer for the Unity of Christians of 2010, which will take inspiration from the evangelical passage: “Of this, you are the witnesses” (Luke, 24, 48). A work team, promoted by the Papal council for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians and by the “Faith and Constitution” Commission of the World Council of the Churches, has developed the preliminary document that will be disclosed to the whole world in the run-up to the celebration of the Week of Prayer. The text – as announced by L’Osservatore Romano – can be found online at the link of the Papal Council, on the Vatican website. The document suggests that the dialectics that in the past opposed the announcement of the Gospel to ecumenical dialogue should be overcome. “Not everyone – the document reads – associates the missionary effort with the wish for the unity of Christians”. While the two facts move “at the same pace”, because “due to our Baptism we already compose one single body and we are called to live in communion. God made us brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. Isn’t this the essential testimony we are called to give?”. The missionaries were actually “the first ones who became aware of the tragedy that the division of Christians was”. “The outrage of disunity looked glaring to the missionaries in charge of announcing the Gospel”.
