Growth in Agreement I
Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations on a World Level, 1972-1982 Meyer, Harding & Lukas Vischer, eds., WCC Publications, 2007. ISBN: 978-2-8254-15108
Turkey’s biggest church faces critical shortage of clergy Istanbul (ENI). Turkey’s biggest Christian church Orthodox Church, is facing a critical shortage of clergy. The church’s membership in Turkey is 82,000, 60,000 of them in Istanbul. However, the Istanbul diocese has only 28 priests, 10 of them aged over 60, for its 38 churches. Over the … Read more »… lire la suite »
US nun calls for ‘responsible dissent’ on Vatican doctrine New York (ENI). A leading Roman Catholic nun and theologian in the United States has called for “responsible dissent” to the Vatican statement that Pope John Paul II’s teaching against the ordination of women is infallible. [ENI-96-0070, 476 words] Bahrain’s Christians urged to pray for end … Read more »… lire la suite »
Dr. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has renewed his call for the main Christian churches to start, in the year 2000, a process to lead to a universal Christian council uniting all churches and Christians. He requested the bodies of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Pentecostal churches to make a solemn promise not to rest until such a council has been achieved. … Read more »… lire la suite »
Canada’s largest Protestant church, the United Church of Canada (UCC), has launched a challenge to the nation’s multi-billion dollar gambling industry, and to the federal and provincial governments which receive massive revenue by taxing gambling. The Canadian Council of Churches and other faith groups are being approached to support the campaign for an inquiry into gambling. … Read more »… lire la suite »
by Jonathan Luxmoore, Ecumenical News International [WARSAW] Minority churches in Poland plan to celebrate the new millennium by joining Roman Catholics in a mutual recognition of baptism. The churches are also considering a joint acknowledgment – with the Roman Catholic Church – of “guilt and forgiveness” for past wrongs. “Many people have warmed to these … Read more »… lire la suite »
by Jerry L. Van Marter, Ecumenical News Service GENEVA – The ecumenical movement of the 21st century must focus less on church institutions and more on the church as “the whole people of God,” the moderator of the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) central committee said on August 26. At a press conference following his … Read more »… lire la suite »
by Stephen Brown, Ecumenical News Service [GENEVA] A special commission set up by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in a bid to resolve complaints by its Orthodox member churches is scheduled to hold its first meeting in December. The scheduling of the meeting follows a series of delays and apparent unwillingness by some Orthodox … Read more »… lire la suite »
‘Bitter differences’ lead to dead-end, Polish ecumenist says by Jonathan Luxmoore, Ecumenical News International [WARSAW] High-level talks between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches which ended in the United States recently were marred by “methodological deficiencies” and a “polemical atmosphere,” leaving relations between the two Christian communions at a dead-end, according to an expert on … Read more »… lire la suite »
A week after publishing a document which casts doubt on the validity of Protestant Christianity and asserts Roman Catholic superiority over all other churches, the Vatican continues to draw criticism both from other churches and from within its own ranks.
The general secretaries of two organizations representing major wings of Protestantism have publicly lamented the harm done to ecumenism by Dominus Iesus, on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, published on Sept. 5 by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document declares that churches that do not have a “valid Episcopate [bishops] and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery are not churches in the proper sense.”
Another document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published in an Italian magazine this month orders Catholic bishops not to use the term “sister church” in reference to Protestant churches. This too has also caused dismay in ecumenical circles. … Read more »… lire la suite »
Church leaders in Jerusalem have warned warring Palestinian factions they could trigger civil war and, offering to play a mediating role, they are urging an end to violence in order for them to focus on the true priority of their people – independence. “As leaders of the Christian churches in Jerusalem concerned at the present situation in the Palestinian Territories we feel we must voice our anxiety for all our people – Christian and Muslim alike – at the deteriorating relations between Fatah and Hamas leaders and the armed forces,” they said. … Read more »… lire la suite »