President Attends WCC Meeting

Jeff Carter, president of Bethany Theological Seminary, is attending the World Council of Churches’ biennial meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, from June 15-21. Carter is the Church of the Brethren representative to the WCC Central Committee, a group of 150 that represents nearly 40 percent of the WCC’s 348 member churches. Among a number of world religious leaders attending is Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

This year’s meeting celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the WCC with an ecumenical service at St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva and an evening of informal storytelling and presentations.  Business items for the Central Committee are a mid-term review of WCC programs, planning the next WCC assembly in 2021, monitoring the ongoing work of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, updates on development plans for WCC property, receiving a new landmark study on ecumenical diakonia (service to the disadvantaged), and addressing a variety of public issues.

A highlight of the meeting will be a day-long visit from Pope Francis I on June 21, which will include a prayer service, time with students at the Ecumenical Institute, and an exchange of messages with the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse and Central Committee moderator Dr. Agnes Abuom.

Information for this release was taken from www.oikoumene.org/en/press-centre/news/wccs-central-committee-set-for-packed-agenda-on-unity-justice-and-peace.