Interview
What is the current role of the WCC in a polarized world?
Bishop Dr Bedford-Strohm: The WCC can play a very important role especially in these polarized times. As a fellowship of 352 churches in 120 countries with 600 million members, we bring together people with extremely different backgrounds. Nevertheless, in a spirit of mutual listening and appreciation, we find consensus on questions for which there is normally hardly any consensus possible. Again and again, this is a miracle to me. We can set an example for the world that life together in diversity is possible if we respect each other, knowing that each one of us is equally created in the image of God.
What is your main message on the WCC’s 76th birthday?
Bishop Dr Bedford-Strohm: It is a message of hope expressed by the motto of the WCC 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe in 2022: “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” With this motto in our hearts, we trust that the violence and injustice we see is not the last word. There is more to come. The future is not a dark hole but a new heaven and a new earth where all tears will be wiped away.
As the moderator; what do you wish for the next new year in the life of the WCC and the fellowship of churches?
Bishop Dr Bedford-Strohm: I wish that we continue to be inspired by Christ’s love and radiate it in our own lives and in our fellowship as the World Council of Churches. I wish that we get engaged in the world by advocating for those who are suffering and by standing by those who are especially vulnerable, knowing well that the happiness and wellbeing of a community is always measured by the fate of its weakest members.
Prayer for Peace on the WCC 76th anniversary, 23 August 2024
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23 November 2022, Bethlehem, Palestine: A peace dove pictured on a wall in Bethlehem, wearing a bulletproof vest and with the aim of a gun pointing at its chest.
Albin Hillert, all rights reserved
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Protesters gathered outside a Carrefour store in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on 20 November 2020, the day after the brutal killing of Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, a black man, at the hands of two white security guards at that store.
The photographer has granted the WCC and its members and partners an unrestricted and universal license to use these images in any media, provided that due credit is given in the form of "Photographer's name/WCC".
Marcelo Schneider/WCC
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A man at the grave of Dortheys Hiyo Eluay in Jayaupura, West Papua. Theys Eluay, as he was popularly known, was a prominent West Papuan independence activist. He was murdered by Indonesian Army special forces command on 10 November 2001.
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During the recent solidarity visit to Ukraine, the World Council of Churches delegation led by the WCC acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca visited Irpin in Kyiv region, witnessing the destruction caused by the invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.
Ivars Kupcis/WCC
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During the World Council of Churches (WCC) leadership delegation visit to Ukraine in May, an ecumenical prayer service was held in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, on 12 May. The service, led by the WCC leadership, WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay, WCC moderator Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, with participation of members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), took place at St Andrew Orthodox Church in Bucha.
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