Confessional gatherings help ground contributions to global body of churches

Currently convening from 18-24 June in Johannesburg, South Africa, the WCC central committee is bringing together some 350 representatives from churches across the globe for the fellowship’s highest governing body in between WCC assemblies.

On 19 June, various church families represented at the central committee gathered for reflection and discernment among their respective traditions.

People sitting in a circle — Confessional meeting of United and Uniting churches gathered at the WCC central committee.

WCC president from Europe, Rev. Dr Susan Durber, said the confessional meetings play the role “not of guarding our own confession, protecting, defending it, or letting it be the one that comes out on top, but for it to be a source of gifts that we take to the great church of the future.”

H.E. Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon from the Ecumenical Patriarchate – co-moderator of the Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration of the WCC – noted the importance of the central committee in providing a space and an opportunity for churches to engage both within their own and among different traditions.

“When we meet as the central committee of the WCC we have the possibility to exchange among the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox family and to discuss our role in the council, not only the relations we have among us in the Orthodox family, but also the way that we can think together with the other Christian communities and churches, be together, and give a witness in the world today,” he said.

“We come to know each other and we come also to know where we go as churches in the ecumenical movement in the modern world,” he added.

Bishop Sally Dyck of the United Methodist Church – who also co-moderates the Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration – said “when you are participating in ecumenism, it causes you to think about your own tradition while you are understanding and learning about others. And I think that's really important.”

“But also, it makes you realize, in my case, that my particular church isn't the only Methodist church, and we learn to appreciate each other more,” she said.

Meeting of the Methodist churches gathered at the 2025 central committee meeting, here moderated by Bishop Rosemarie Wenner of the World Methodist Council.

WCC president from Africa H.H. Most Rev. Dr Rufus Okikiola Ositelu continued to note that “when the confessions meet, we can reflect on the agenda of the WCC and bring out our own contribution, our own idea how we can forge forward for the same goal,” he said, highlighting the prophetic witness of the church and the Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity.

WCC president from Africa H.H. Most Rev. Dr Rufus Okikiola Ositelu leads the confessional meeting of African Instituted churches at the 2025 central committee.

“It's very important for the central committee to have a collective vision from different countries, from different ethnic groups, from different life contexts,” reflected Coptic Orthodox Metropolitan H.E. Thomas of Quosia and Mir and added in conclusion: “It's like the one body with different organs. Everyone would have their own function and their own ideas, but we are of the same body... So we might be looking different, having different praise, maybe singing in cultural ways, in different ways, but still we have the same and only one DNA, only one faith in Christ.”