À Ottawa, dans le contexte d’échanges avec les leaders parlementaires du Canada sur des questions urgentes de justice et de développement pour tous, le Conseil canadien des Églises vient d’élire sa nouvelle Administration pour le triennat 2009-2012.

Les nouveaux administrateurs élus reflètent la grande diversité du Conseil canadien des Églises, qui représente 85 % des chrétiens du Canada : à la présidence, le Très Révérend Bruce Adema, de l’Église réformée chrétienne; à la vice-présidence, le Major Gillian Brown, de l’Armée du Salut, Mgr Gilles Cazabon, de la Conférence des évêques catholiques du Canada et le Père John Jillions, de l’Église orthodoxe d’Amérique; à la trésorerie, Don Taylor, de l’Église presbytérienne du Canada.

Ces administrateurs vont continuer de canaliser les efforts du Conseil canadien des Églises vers la Religion dans l’espace public. Ils ont été élus dans l’enthousiasme lors d’une réunion du Conseil de direction qui rassemblait sept délégations auprès de chefs de partis et de hauts fonctionnaires. Ces dernières se sont penchées sur le besoin d’éliminer la traite des personnes au Canada et ont appelé l’attention sur le Sixième sommet annuel des dirigeants interreligieux, qui se tiendra en juin 2010 avec l’objectif d’interpeller la réunion 2010 des dirigeants politiques du G8 à respecter les Objectifs de développement du millénaire. Ces derniers, qui sont une affaire de vie ou de mort pour des millions d’humains, sont désespérément en retard par rapport aux engagements du G8 même. Voir: www.faithchallengeg8.com

Le Conseil canadien des Églises est un des plus vastes conseils oecuméniques au monde, avec ses 22 confessions représentant les traditions anglicane, protestante, catholique, évangélique, de l’Église libre, orthodoxe de l’est et orthodoxe orientale. Voir: www.ccc-cce.ca

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Pour obtenir plus d’information ou pour organiser une interview, s’adresser à la Rév. Karen Hamilton, secrétaire générale, Conseil canadien des Églises, tél. : 416 972-9494 poste 22,

In Ottawa, in the context of conversations with the parliamentary leaders of Canada on pressing issues of justice and development for all people, the Canadian Council of Churches elected a new Executive for 2009-2012.

The newly elected Officers come from the wide diversity of the Canadian Council of Churches which represents 85% of the Christians in Canada. As President, The Rev. Bruce Adema of the Christian Reformed Church. As Vice Presidents, Major Gillian Brown of the Salvation Army, Bishop Gilles Cazabon of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and Father John Jillions of the Orthodox Church in America. As Treasurer, Don Taylor of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

These Officers will continue to build on the focus of the Canadian Council of Churches on Faith and the Public Square. They were enthusiastically elected in the course of the Governing Board meeting which included seven delegations to party leaders and senior officials. Those delegations addressed the need to eradicate human trafficking in Canada and called attention to the 6th Annual Interfaith Leaders Summit which will be meeting in June 2010 to challenge the G8 political leaders meeting in Canada at that time to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals. Progress on the Millennium Development Goals, which are a question of life or death for millions in the world, is desperately behind the G8’s own commitments. See: www.faithchallengeg8.com

The Canadian Council of Churches is one of the broadest ecumenical councils in the world, including 22 denominations from the Anglican, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Free Church and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox traditions. See: www.ccc-cce.ca

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For more information or to arrange an interview contact The Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, General
Secretary, The Canadian Council of Churches, phone: 416-972-9494 ext. 22 or email .

[Lviv • WCC News] The hope that all Christians will be able to celebrate Easter on the same day in the future was reaffirmed by an international ecumenical seminar organized by the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, 15 May.

The problem is just about as old as the church itself: As Christianity started to spread around the world, Christians came to differing results on when to commemorate Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, due to the different reports in the four gospels on these events.

Attempts to establish a common date for Easter began with the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. It established that the date of Easter would be the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. However, it did not fix the methods to be used to calculate the timing of the full moon or the vernal equinox.

Nowadays the Orthodox churches use the 21 March of the Julian calendar as the date of the equinox, while the churches of the Western tradition – that is the Protestant and Catholic churches – base their calculations on the Gregorian calendar. The resulting gap between the two Easter dates can be as much as five weeks.

All participants at the seminar in Lviv, which included Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians from a variety of European countries, endorsed a compromise proposed at a World Council of Churches (WCC) consultation in Aleppo, Syria, in 1997. The proposal was to keep the Nicaea rule but calculate the equinox and full moon using the accurate astronomical data available today, rather than those used many years ago.

Concretely, participants at the seminar expressed the hope that the years 2010 and 2011, when the coincidence of the calendars will produce a common Easter date, would serve as a period during which all Christians would join their efforts "to make such coincidence not to be an exception but rather a rule" and prepare for an Easter date based on exact astronomical reckoning and celebrated by all Christians on 8 April 2012.

However, the seminar entitled "A common date for Easter is possible" did not turn a blind eye to what participants considered to be "the main problem": "not the calculations, but the complex relations and missing of trust among different Christian denominations because of long divisions."

French Orthodox theologian Prof. Antoine Arjakovsky, director of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies, pointed out: "Whilst the astronomic reckoning of the Nicean rule comes closer to the Gregorian calendar than to the ancient Julian one, the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches did take a step towards the Orthodox churches in Aleppo, accepting that the date of Easter should be established on the base of a cosmic calendar rather than by a fixed date as had been proposed prior to the inter-Orthodox meeting in Chambésy in 1977."

Other speakers at the ecumenical seminar were Rev. Dr Dagmar Heller, professor at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey and executive secretary of the WCC Faith and Order Commission, Jesuit Father Milan Zust, an official of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Prof. Konstantin Sigov, director of Saint Clement Centre in Kiev, Ukraine.

Further to the students of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies – a consortium between the Ukrainian Catholic University, the National University of Lviv and several other European universities – the seminar had gathered representatives of the city's major denominations: the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of the patriarchates of Moscow and Kiev as well as the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the Ukraine, the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Baptist and the Evangelical Church.

• More information about the seminar (Ukrainian Catholic University website)
• Frequently asked questions about the date of Easter
• Proposals from the Aleppo consultation

The Canadian Council of Churches holds its May Governing Board meeting in the Capital

[CCC • Erin Green] From May 11 to 15, 2009 The Canadian Council of Churches is engaging the Government of Canada through several high profile events. Outgoing President, The Rev. Dr. James Christie, said “Through this Churches’ Week in Ottawa The Canadian Council of Churches is strengthening the presence of churches in public life, drawing on a long tradition of engagement in the public square, and contributing to the public dialogue today on matters, which affect all people in Canada and the world.”

On Tuesday, May 12, the Commission on Just and Peace is hosting a “Forum on Faith and a Sustainable Economy: Reflections on Hope and Transformation.” Of special note is the lunchtime roundtable with Members of Parliament Rick Dykstra, Peter Julian, John McKay, and Yves Lessard. The MP Roundtable is co-hosted by The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the Canadian Council of Churches. Attendees include Members of Parliament and Senate and representatives from a broad range of Christian and other faith traditions, civil society and social justice organizations. Parliament Hill, Wellington Building Room 214, Tuesday, May 12th from 9am to 5pm.

On Wednesday, May 13, the Governing Board will host a “Forum on Faith and the Public Square: What Difference Do Churches Make?” The guest is The Honourable Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition. St. Andrew’s Church, 83 Kent Street, Wednesday, May 13th, 3:15pm to 5pm. This meeting is closed to the media.

On Thursday evening, all are welcome to join in a “Prayers for Peace for Afghanistan” service in the Roman Catholic tradition with contributions from member denominations of The Canadian Council of Churches in their traditional languages – English, French, Greek, Konkani, Ukrainian, Arabic, and Armenian, among others. The service will be attended by Brigadier General, David C. Kettle, Chaplain General of the Canadian Forces, and a representative of His Excellency Omar Samad, Ambassador of Afghanistan to Canada. Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica on Thursday, May 14th at 7:30pm.

On Thursday and Friday delegations from the Governing Board will meet with senior leaders of all political parties to build relationships, raise concerns regarding human trafficking in Canada; and urge Canada to increase its contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, especially related to preparations for Canada hosting the G8 Summit in 2010; among other issues.

The Canadian Council of Churches is the largest ecumenical body in Canada, now representing 21 churches of Anglican, Evangelical, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions. We are one of the few ecumenical bodies in the world that includes such a range of Christian churches. The officers and staff of the Council are drawn from the whole diversity of traditions represented by the member churches.

For further information on the events and activities during this Churches’ Week in Ottawa meeting of the Commission on Justice and Peace and Governing Board of The Canadian Council of Churches please contact:

The Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton
General Secretary
c. 416.522.3883

Mr. Peter Noteboom
Associate Secretary, Justice and Peace
c. 416.939.3595