NEW WCC GENERAL SECRETARY ELECTED

A South African minister and academic has been elected as the new general secretary of the World Council of Churches.

The Rev Prof Dr Jerry Pillay was elected at a meeting of the WCC central committee on June 17.

He will be the ninth general secretary in the WCC’s history since the fellowship of churches was founded in 1948, and will take up the role on January 1 2023.

Dr Pillay is currently dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria. He is a minister and former General Secretary of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.

In his address to the WCC Central Committee before his election on June 17, he said that his vision for the organisation was: “A united, flourishing, sustainable and contextually relevant WCC, praying, worshipping, witnessing and working together to impact and transform the world with God’s love, justice, peace, reconciliation and unity, participating in God’s reign on earth and the fullness of life for all creation.”

The general secretary serves as the WCC’s chief executive officer, and leads the WCC’s work, including final responsibility for WCC’s work and its staff.

Dr Pillay will succeed the Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, who had served as acting General Secretary since April 2020, when the previous general secretary, the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, was appointed as the presiding bishop of the Church of Norway.

Dr Agnes Abuom, WCC central committee moderator, said to Dr Pillay:

“May the WCC global fellowship warmly welcome you, pray for you, and show you in every way that we care for you as you take on important leadership in our ongoing journey toward Christian unity.

You and the ecumenical movement are making history—and forming a future in which we can live out God’s love for one another and for all.”

(WCC)

INVASION CONDEMNED

Deploring the illegal and unjustifiable war “inflicted on the people and sovereign state of Ukraine” the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee lamented “the awful and continuing toll of deaths, destruction and displacement, of destroyed relationships and ever more deeply entrenched antagonism between the people of the region, of escalating confrontation globally, of increased famine risk in food insecure regions of the world, of economic hardship and heightened social and political instability in many countries.”

In a public statement, the WCC governing body declared that “war, with the killing and all the other miserable consequences it entails, is incompatible with God’s very nature and will for humanity and against our fundamental Christian and ecumenical principles.”

The statement further “rejects any misuse of religious language and authority to justify armed aggression.”

The governing body reiterated “the appeal of the global fellowship of churches represented in the WCC for an end to this tragic war, for an immediate ceasefire to halt the death and destruction, and for dialogue and negotiations to secure a sustainable peace.”

The statement further calls for “a much greater investment by the international community in searching for and promoting peace, rather than in escalating confrontation and division” and affirms “the mandate and special role of the World Council of Churches in accompanying its member churches in the region and as a platform and safe space for encounter and dialogue in order to address the many pressing issues for the world and for the ecumenical movement arising from this conflict, and the obligation of its members to seek unity and together serve the world, and therefore urges members of the ecumenical fellowship in Russia and Ukraine to make use of this platform.”

(WCC)

LWF WELCOMES UKRAINE CHURCH

The German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine (GELCU) is now an individual member church of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The LWF Council accepted GELCU’s application for membership on June 14, during the governing body’s meeting in Geneva.

This brings the total number of churches in the LWF to 149 in 99 countries. Until its application, GELCU had been an LWF member church through the Federation of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (ELC), a regional body comprising churches in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

“The Council receives with joy the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine into membership in The Lutheran World Federation,” the governing body unanimously voted.

GELCU has 1,000 members in its 24 Lutheran congregations and another 160 in four Reformed congregations that are associate members. The church has eight ordained pastors and one deacon serving in its various ministries, alongside five other employees.

The LWF Council met from June 9-14. In addition to welcoming GELCU, it agreed public statements on Ukraine, the global hunger crisis, Israel/Palestine and Covid-19.

(LWF)