Feature story
Since Harare, each WCC assembly has had this space for workshops, celebrations and exhibits, showing participants the extraordinary wealth of initiatives and experiences in which the Spirit breathes and nurtures the lives of millions.
As participants walk to the assembly space in Karlsruhe, they invariably look and stop at the tents that line the route and showcase some of these initiatives.
At one end of the row is the Moravian Church tent, with a display of its devotional, Daily Texts, which has now reached 292 years of uninterrupted annual publication! In 1731 the Daily Texts were printed for the first time. Since then, a new book has been published every year, regardless of times of crisis or war. Nowadays, it is published in some 60 languages, bringing Biblical texts and short meditations to nurture the spiritual life of many people around the world.
Close to the Moravian tent you find the Focolare, more specifically its Centro “Uno” for Christian Unity, of the Ecumenical Secretariat of the Focolare Movement.
The Focolare —Italian for "hearth" or "family fireside"— officially known as the Work of Mary, was inspired by Chiara Lubich, who once wrote about her hope that "other forms of dialogue, like that of charity, of shared service, of prayer, the theological dialogue, can be empowered by the 'dialogue of life'."
The Focolare Movement operates in 180 nations and has over 140,440 members and works cooperatively to build a more united world, respecting and valuing diversity. It remains largely Roman Catholic but has strong links to the major Christian denominations and other religions, or in some cases with the non-religious.
The next tent opens your eyes and mind to the work of the Global Christian Forum (GCF), that celebrated it first global gathering of diverse Christian traditions in Limuru, Kenya in 2007. The Limuru gathering affirmed the “compelling vision” of GCF, and the breadth of representation at the event, and the spirit of mutuality, inspired the continuation of this initiative.
The Roman Catholic Church through the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, the World Evangelical Alliance, the Pentecostal World Fellowship, and the World Council of Churches are the four pillars of GCF, a space where Christian communities gather to build relationships, broaden conversations, share faith-stories, and foster mutual respect.
Following the Limuru event, GCF organized two other global fora in Manado, Indonesia, 2011, and Bogota, Colombia, 2018. The fourth GCF global gathering will take place in Accra, Ghana, in 2024, with the theme “That the world may know”.
The Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO) occupies another tent. It was founded 30 years ago at the initiative of the Hellenic Parliament with the aim of promoting the principles and values of the Orthodox Christian tradition in the field of European and international politics.
Having developed a wide network of relations with international institutions and civil society stakeholders, IAO is engaged in supporting the protection of tangible and intangible World Cultural Heritage regarding the Orthodox World, stressing the importance of the inter-religious and inter-faith dialogue for the peaceful coexistence of people, among other issues. IAO is distributing the volume ‘Hagia Sophia: The Churches of the Wisdom of God around the World’ to assembly participants.
From IAO we walk to the Korea Peace Appeal tent. It is an international campaign that seeks to amplify voices calling for an end to the Korean War and achieve peace in the Korean Peninsula by collecting 100 million signatures of the Peace Appeal from 2020, the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, to 2023, the 70th anniversary of the armistice agreement.
Thus, please, do not forget to stamp your name in their book if you want to support the initiatives of ending the Korean War by establishing a peace agreement, creating a Korean Peninsula and a world free from nuclear weapons and nuclear threat, and resolving the conflict with dialogue and cooperation.
Brunnen Workshops at the 11th WCC Assembly in Karlsruhe
Livestream of the WCC 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany
