Feature story
Erich Weingartner, a former WCC staff member, recalled his memories of the consultation.
“When you reach my age, you tend to rummage through your memories,” he said. “What were the highlights of my life? What do I consider to be the greatest achievement of my career?”
For Weingartner, it was the Glion Consultation. “It was not an easy meeting,” he said. “There were enormous barriers of suspicion and distrust between the two delegations.”
He said what remains embedded in his memory is the celebration of the closing eucharist. “At first, we turned to our immediate neighbour, shaking hands and saying, ‘Peace be with you.’
But every time that simple phrase ‘Peace be with you,’ was spoken aloud, the realization of what this meant in the context of divided Korea intensified,” said Weingartner. “These words had not been spoken to each other in 40 years since separation.”
Participants began to cross over to the other side of the circle, Weingartner recalled. “Everyone felt an urgent need to hug everyone else in the gathering,” he said. “Christians or not, it no longer mattered. Communists or capitalists no longer mattered.”
Weingartner recalled that tears began to flow freely.
“My dear friends, I did not see flames descending on anyone's head, but I grasped for the first time what Pentecost must have felt like for international participants as described in the Book of Acts,” he said. “In the fractured world in which we live today, what could be a more fitting message of hope?”
2026 International Peace Convocation to take place in Korea (WCC news release, 7 September 2026)
