The 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) took place in Karlsruhe, Germany, from 31 August to 8 September 2022.
Video recordings of the Assembly events and proceedings are available on YouTube. Documents and statements relating to the assembly are also available online.
Below we provide a brief overview of some of the plenary sessions:
8 September 2022
The final plenary session of the 11th Assembly included an address by Rev Prof Dr Jerry Pillay, the WCC General Secretary elect, who will take up the appointment in January 2023. Opening his speech, he gave his vision for the WCC:
‘I envision 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.’
Talking through the priorities and actions needed to enable this vision, he said ‘Visible Christian unity is absolutely necessary to witness to a broken and suffering world. A divided Church is a weak and feeble witness to an already fragmented world.’ Hand in hand with the need for unity was work towards justice, he said: ‘The WCC is called to stand where God stands, to reflect God’s justice, including economic, gender and ecological justice in the world.’
Among other actions, he said the WCC needed to continue to ‘create safe spaces for honest, truthful and courageous conversations to encompass, understand and dialogue a variety of views.’ It also needed to ‘lift the voices of the marginalised and neglected within the WCC’ and ‘create a culture of inclusivity, diversity and equity’.
A recording of the final plenary is available on YouTube.
The WCC also issued a number of public statements agreed at the Assembly including:
- Unity Statement of the WCC 11th Assembly
- War in Ukraine, Peace and Justice in the European Region
- Seeking Justice and Peace for All in the Middle East
- The Living Planet: Seeking a Just and Sustainable Global Community
All the statements and documents from the Assembly are available online.
7 September 2022
Introducing an address by Marcelo Leites from the World Student Christian Fellowship, the Acting WCC General Secretary, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, reminded delegates that the ecumenical movement began as a student movement: ‘So when I hear young people asking for the floor, I understand why. Because they are the future but also they are the past, because the youth movement started the ecumenical movement.’ Responding to earlier requests from young delegates for greater participation, the afternoon business plenary started by dealing with this issue. Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC central committee, said that the process had started to find ways to strengthen the participation of young people and that the policy reference committee would present a proposal: ‘The central committee members have a responsibility, and a great one at that, to act and make sure that the cry, the plea, the commitment of young people does not go empty, but that we shall make use of what they’ve been contributing and really be at the table, the table to be widened.’ A recording of the business plenary is available on YouTube.
Concluding the thematic plenaries, the day’s topic was ‘The bond of Christian unity and the churches’ common witness’. It included an address by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who said that in times of world crisis ‘the time of ecumenical winter and the habits of division, of living separately, is past… The world crisis must not be allowed to continue while the world Church remains divided… We are called to offer our obedience to the prayer that they may be one, in humility.’ He finished by addressing his own efforts towards Christian unity: ‘in that spirit of honesty I must say that, I for one, after nine and a half years in this role, feel a deep sense of failure and shame on my efforts in the ecumenical area and before you I want to commit myself now, and with you I pray and hope, to seek afresh the future unity to which we are all called, not a unity of identity but a unity of diversity in the richness of God’s creation, and in that and towards that and with that, may God give us courage, joy, love and peace. Amen.’
The full speech is available on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website. A recording of the thematic plenary is available on YouTube.
6 September 2022
Following an address to the Assembly by Rabbi David Fox Sandmel, chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, the Acting WCC General Secretary, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, said: “I look forward that our relationship improves and our co-operation is strengthened after the Assembly. That we work together for the peace in the world and that the Israelis and Palestinians can find a way of respecting one another and fully respecting the human dignity of one another. So from the bottom of my heart I express my thanks to you.”
The plenary theme looked at affirming justice and human dignity, and addressed issues of gender justice, racial justice and justice for persons with disability. To introduce the theme, delegates were treated to a display of para-dance. You can read more in the WCC report and press conference, and also watch a recording on YouTube.
Election of 150 members of the central committee was completed in the business plenary, including dealing with counter nominations. The new central committee is comprised of 41% women, 59% men, 13% youth, 13% Indigenous persons, 3% persons with disabilities, 29% laypeople and 71% ordained. You can read more details and watch a recording of the business plenary.
5 September 2022
Introducing addresses from the Chairman of the World Pentecostal Fellowship, Rev Dr William Wilson, and the President of the World Evangelical Alliance, Prof Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, the Acting WCC General Secretary, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, said: “We keep talking about one another without knowing who we are. And we discover who we are only if we come to the table to discuss with one another. That’s why I value so much [the] ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches.”
The thematic plenary focussed on ‘Affirming the wholeness of life’ discussing the challenges of the environment, economy, health and militarisation, which included participation from indigenous peoples and those living with HIV and AIDs. A recording of the plenary is available on YouTube.
The business plenary included a report from the nominations committee and the election of 8 new Presidents, with Rev Dr Susan Durber of the United Reformed Church (URC) being elected for Europe. A recording of the business plenary is available on YouTube.
During the plenary delegates were allowed to make comments or ask questions, and Annika Matthews, from the Church of England, took the opportunity to make a plea for greater youth participation: “We’re not here as tokens. We have gifts God uses like anyone else. To the member churches: if you don’t prioritise young people now, the ecumenical movement is at risk”.
2 September 2022
During the European plenary, Church leaders from Ukraine, together with heads of ecumenical organisations, emphasised the need for reconciliation, unity, and peacebuilding.
Recording of the European plenary
1 September 2022
On the first day of the Season of Creation, the theme for the day was The purpose of God’s love in Christ for the whole creation – reconciliation and unity. Addressing the Assembly remotely, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said climate change was the greatest threat to our planet, describing a need for repentance ‘from indiscriminate habits and destructive practices toward other people and in relation to nature’s resources’… ‘If we are to make any change to our priorities and lifestyles we must do so together as churches and communities, as societies and nations. We must bear one another’s burdens if we wish to fulfill the love of Christ.’ He also called to attention the current conflict in Ukraine and the ‘unjust suffering of our brothers and sisters’.
A recording of the first Thematic Plenary is available on YouTube.
Report from the Acting General Secretary – 31 August 2022
Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca presented highlights from his report to the Assembly, which is available to download.
In his prelude, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca emphasised the need to strengthen relationships between churches, within and outside the WCC, and with other ecumenical bodies, describing the WCC, the Pentecostal World Fellowship, The Vatican (Roman Catholic Church) and the World Evangelical Alliance as the ‘four pillars’ that comprise the Global Christian Forum (established after the 8th WCC Assembly in 1998). His report outlines addressing ‘the challenges of our times’, including climate justice, racial justice and issues of human sexuality. On the latter, he emphasised that the ‘WCC does not have a position or a policy on this issue as it is the churches themselves that have to debate it and arrive at a conclusion for themselves’.
A recording of the presentation is available on YouTube.
Opening press conference – 31 August 2022
At the opening press conference, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, acting general secretary of the WCC, said that while he heard people talk of an ecumenical winter, what he had experienced over the last 3 years was an ecumenical spring: ‘People need us. As Christians we need to be together’. Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC central committee, expressed her expectations that the 11th Assembly would ‘provide ambience for spiritual celebration, for celebration of creation, for celebration of life’. HE Metropolitian, Nifon, vice moderator of the WCC central committee said, ‘visible Christian unity is for me the expectation. It doesn’t matter how much we achieve out of it’. You can view a recording of the whole of the opening press conference on YouTube.
Introduction
Dr Nicola Brady, CTBI’s General Secretary, provides an introduction to the Assembly.
A gathering of the global Church is always an exciting and important occasion, but this particular Assembly comes at a critical moment where churches are reflecting on their priorities in the context of a world that has been changed by COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The formal purpose of the Assembly is to serve as the supreme legislative body for the WCC. Ordinarily it meets every eight years to review policy and practice and make appointments to the senior offices of the Council. It appoints a Central Committee to serve as chief governing body during this period.
The Assembly is also a vital space for reflection, discernment and planning and each assembly adopts a specific theme to guide this process. The theme chosen this year is “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity”. The Assembly resources explain the theme in this way:
“In this fragmented and fractured world, the Assembly theme is an affirmation of faith that Christ’s love transforms the world in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Against the powers of destruction and sin, the Assembly theme affirms that the love of the compassionate, crucified, and risen Christ is at the heart of this world. It is a radical call to the churches to work together unceasingly and with people of other faiths and all those of good will for just peace and reconciliation. It is a call for the visible unity of the church to become a prophetic sign and a foretaste of the reconciliation of this world with God, and the unity of humankind and all creation.”
The whole of Dr Nicola Brady’s introduction to the WCC 11th Assembly (PDF) is available in CTBI’s Spring 2022 magazine, including how the theme that has been chosen, and the vision for the role and contribution of the Church that underpins it, aligns very closely with the work of CTBI.
Further information
The WCC website has lots of information to help you understand how the Assembly works, plus resources to help you reflect on the theme, including those for prayer and Bible study.
