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“We at the World Council of Churches congratulate you, Bishop Olav, on your receipt of this much-deserved award and recognition for your decades of ecumenical work and its manifest achievements,” wrote Pillay. "Through your early service to the Church of Norway, then your tenure as WCC general secretary, and your subsequent labours as presiding bishop, you have changed the landscape of the ecumenical movement and enhanced the effectiveness of its action and advocacy in the world.”
Pillay commended Tveit’s many accomplishments, among them launching and leading the WCC Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace. “Through your leadership of international ecumenical initiatives for just peace and social justice, you have held up the inviolability of our God-given human dignity and its concrete expression in structures of economic justice, gender justice, and global health,” wrote Pillay. "Through your outreach to churches outside the ecumenical fellowship, to leaders and organizations of other faiths, and to all people of good will, you have expanded the horizon of ecumenical engagement for human fraternity and cooperative action for social and environmental change.”
Tveit received the award during a special ceremony on 14 November.
"This is an important recognition of the peace-building role that religion and organizations like the World Council of Churches can take. At its best, cooperation between churches and dialogue between different religions builds understanding and respect. I am deeply grateful, both for the order and to all the skilled professionals I have had and still have the pleasure of working with to create peace and reconciliation", said Tveit to the Church of Norway press service after the ceremony.
