Document
It is with profound gratitude to God that the World Council of Churches (WCC) remembers the life and work of Dom Emmanuel Lanne on the occasion of his death. Father Lanne was a close and highly respected friend of the WCC. His theological competence, spiritual energy, and warm personality with which he contributed to the furtherance of the ecumenical movement have marked our memory and the history of ecumenical endeavours in the second half of the 20th century.
Father Lanne belonged to the first group of Roman Catholic theologians that became in especially close ways associated with the WCC as members of the Commission on Faith and Order. He served on this Commission from 1968 to 1998. Thus, for 30 years he was a faithful, knowledgeable and most active and committed member of this Commission, serving also on its Standing Commission and as one of its Vice Moderators from 1971 to 1976.
The close relation of Father Lanne to the WCC was also recognized by his participation as a Catholic Observer at the WCC Assemblies at Uppsala (1968), Nairobi (1975), and Vancouver (1983). He was also involved in studies of the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council, in the preparation and interpretation of the significant Faith and Order document on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982), and other ecumenical studies.
Father Lanne has been an outstanding theological mediator, grounded in his own biographical and theological involvements, between the Eastern and Western traditions and between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC and Christian World Communions. The World Council of Churches will remember Father Lanne as one of its faithful friends and companions on our common ecumenical pilgrimage. May the Triune God grant him a blessed and gracious rest.
Geneva/Tutzing, 25 June 2010.
For the World Council of Churches:
The Rev. Dr. Günther Gassmann
(Director of the Secretariat of Faith and Order between 1985 and 1996)
