Document
2025 – A Special Year
Dear sisters and brothers,
1. Our executive committee meeting here in China comes at a time when we look back to an exceptional year. It was exceptional in its spiritual depth. It was exceptional in its ecclesiological importance. It was exceptional in its public significance. And it was certainly exceptional in the efforts that it demanded from so many people. Amongst the many meetings and conferences which I would have to mention, I only want to name our central committee meeting in Johannesburg, the Life and Work anniversary conference in Stockholm, and the Faith and Order conference in Wadi Al Natrun, Egypt. I think of those who traveled a lot throughout the globe in order to participate and contribute in these and all the other conferences. Of those who hosted the events and accompanied us with such generosity and warmth. And of those who had to manage all the preparations in our staff in Geneva. Despite the extremely dense demands, they worked with great enthusiasm together with local hosts to ensure these conferences were successful.
2. Therefore, my report to you begins with a big thank you for all who have worked so hard and especially our WCC staff in Geneva and our general secretary who had to guide them through all this. I can only express my hope that the coming year will allow more of the rest you always need in your ongoing good work!
3. I want to take up two central themes from the past conferences and speak about their impulses for the future that will nurture our future work: unity of the churches and climate justice action. Both are central to our Pilgrimage of Justice, Unity, and Reconciliation.
Unity of the churches
4. “Where now for visible unity?” – this was the question that stood as a headline above our meeting in Wadi Al Natrun. The richness of answers that all the contributors to the conference gave was impressive. An especially powerful voice came from the young people. In the statement that came out of the GETI pre-assembly, they make a forceful claim: “GETI’s hope is in shared humanity and an ecumenism born of pain and promise. We call Faith and Order to deepen its engagement with the lived theologies of people at the margins. Visible unity cannot be achieved solely through institutional or doctrinal dialogue but must additionally engage the realities of displacement, poverty, and pain in refugee camps, migrant shelters, in the exploited earth, and in communities where unity is practiced daily through survival, reconciliation, and solidarity.“ And then they ask a strong question: “If ecumenical councils such as Nicaea stood to articulate our shared, common faith, what will Faith and Order do to protect justice, human dignity, and the integrity of all creation?”[1]
5. H.E. Metropolitan Dr Mor Geevarghese Coorilos from the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, put his answer to this question in the plenary with the youth on the last day, in a trinity: ecumenism of the head, ecumenism of the heart, and ecumenism of the feet.
6. I want to take up this helpful distinction. We will need ecumenism of the head also in the future. Since the differences that still separate us are also theological differences, we need to continue to exchange about these theological differences and further explore common ground. My own assessment is that we have come very far with clarifying these differences as something that would not necessarily keep us from taking further steps to visible unity. Commemorating the beauty of the Nicene Creed that unites all of us has been a strong push in this direction.
7. Unity of the churches does not require an entirely common ecclesiology but a consensus that our different ecclesiologies do not have to separate us in the essential dimensions of our faith in the triune God. Ecumenism persists even through setbacks because it is nurtured by the deep trust that Christ’s love will lead us to unity someday. The more we honestly reflect about the question of which of our differences are mainly based on our denominational or even regional cultures, and which are really based on the depth of our relationship to the triune God, the more we will narrow down the theological obstacles to growing visible unity. After all, we will all agree that as Christians we do not put our denomination first but nothing else but Christ himself.
8. The words with which Pope Leo XIV greeted the Stockholm assembly were encouraging. “While the Catholic Church was not represented at that first gathering,” he said referring to the 1925 Stockholm conference, “I can affirm, with humility and joy, that we stand with you today as fellow disciples of Christ, recognizing that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.”
9. “Since the Second Vatican Council,” he continued, “the Catholic Church has wholeheartedly embraced the ecumenical path,” saying that Unitatis redintegratio, the Council’s decree on ecumenism, “called us to dialogue in humble and loving fraternity, grounded in our common baptism and our shared mission in the world.”
10. “We believe that the unity Christ wills for His church must be visible,” he said, “and that such unity grows through theological dialogue, common worship where possible, and shared witness in the face of humanity’s suffering.”
11. One can recognize the trinity of ecumenism of the head, the heart, and the feet in these words.
12. Similarly, the H.H. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, in his sermon in Stockholm Cathedral on 23 August, urged us to follow the path of ecumenism as a witness to the world for peace amongst humans and with nonhuman nature:
13. “Never has the voice of a united Christianity been needed more than today. Peacemaking is integrally and inseparably associated to the coexistence of all people and the survival of our planet. It is reflected in the way we treat one another and the way we treat the natural environment. The way we behave toward and respect each other mirrors and influences the way we treat and respond to the rest of creation. We have it in our power to contribute either to the healing of our world or to its suffering. Dear friends, what will we choose?“
14. The answer to this rhetorical question is clear. And I promise that we as WCC will continue to do whatever we can to embody this answer.
15. For this endeavor, it is all the more important that we experience again and again the second part of the trinity of ecumenism: the ecumenism of the heart. After we highlighted this term in our unity document in Karlsruhe, I look back to many occasions in which I have deeply felt this dimension of ecumenism in my own heart and soul. And I have felt the uniting power of this dimension.
16. In Egypt, those of us who could be part of the conference maybe felt it most when we came together in the amphitheater of the monastery of Anaphora to which the founder of this beautiful place, our brother Metropolitan Thomas, had invited us. We were connected by the content of our faith in being led through salvation history by the impressive embodiments of this salvation history on the monastery grounds, especially the beautiful paintings of the church of resurrection. We could feel that we are a community of brothers and sisters when we ate, sang, and prayed in the round circle of the theater. And we heard about the enactment of the love of Christ in this monastery when Metropolitan Thomas introduced the gift that everyone received this evening: a little cross that socially burdened young people had made from what was seen as “garbage” from cutting trees. There is no garbage – this message on human dignity reached our hearts.
17. On this evening we experienced that we are deeply connected in Christ. Several speakers in Anafora, but also in the conference hall in Wadi Al Natrun, when asking the conference question “Where now for visible unity?”, pointed towards the assembled community and said: “Here it is, the visible unity!”
18. Fortunately, this experience does not depend on going to a conference in a faraway country. I am sure each one of you can tell manifold stories from their own contexts about similar experiences of ecumenism of the heart that keep us together even when thick forms of community in Christ such as eucharistic hospitality are not possible – or more precisely: not possible yet. For we can never be satisfied with a situation where visible unity is not also unity at the table of the Lord.
19. The young GETI participants found beautiful und spiritually meaningful words for the longing for visible unity:
20. “GETI showed us that unity is God’s gift, received when we are brave enough to be wounded together and discover we have always been one body. In a world of graves, broken bodies, and defiled creation, we envision a new, contemporary visible unity arising from recognition of our shared pain and our mutual commitment to action.”
21. Indeed, we are “longing for an ecumenism in which we bring all of ourselves to the journey and to the table, not separating thought from prayer, prayer from action, or action from thought.”
22. The ecumenism of the feet – or as I would add: ecumenism of the hands and feet that I see behind these words - finds its expression in the social projects in the Anafora monastery. It is, however, also the driving force behind our activities in filling the Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action with life.
Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action
23. Since we launched the decade in Johannesburg, our staff in Geneva has worked hard in producing material for promoting it everywhere in our churches. An internet page will be launched soon in which churches and parishes all over the world can get inspiration for their own embodiment of the decade in their home contexts.
24. We must be very clear that the decade is only as forceful as churches and their parishes all over the world make it. If we take our ecclesiological affirmations and our call to unity seriously, we must embody this unity by serving each other as ambassadors of the context of the others. We must enlarge each other’s voices in the churches but also and especially in the public square. That is why I have used every opportunity to tell the stories of our brothers and sisters in the Pacific who lose their homes due to rising ocean levels in my own context.
25. We can set signs by living the ecological lifestyle we are talking about. We can raise our own and others’ ecological consciousness. However, in the end, the question of whether those who are most affected by climate change now and those who will be in the future can have a good life, is decided politically.
26. Therefore, as churches, we need to engage in public discourse wherever possible. In democratic states, politicians who strive to be elected or re-elected, need our support for their engagement in climate justice. Especially where the necessary ecological transformation might entail hardship for a certain while, the churches have an important task of making clear that this transformation is a moral duty. Whatever the political system is in which we live as churches, we are called to use our moral and spiritual capital to move those in power to engage in forceful action to fight global warming and protect living environments of our brothers and sisters, especially in the most affected regions such as the Pacific. It is also important to dialogue about these issues within the churches. But we also need to leave our church bubbles in order to engage in dialogue with those who in politics and business, in the end, make the decisions. Too often, our words are too self-referential. We must bring our well-considered statements in dialogue with those who are sometimes caught in the day-to-day politics and all the dilemma situations connected with it. Politicians are our allies where they struggle to take steps towards ecological transformation, even though they might be considered too small.
27. Let me, in this context, also say a word of appreciation to our Chinese hosts. My word of appreciation goes, of course, first to all those who have welcomed us so beautifully in their country and have put so much effort in preparing this meeting. But it also goes to all those in church and government who are promoting the ecological transformation of the Chinese economy. Its progress is impressive.
28. A recent study by the US nongovernmental organization Global Energy Monitor has gotten worldwide attention in its highlighting of the Chinese role in global ecological transformation. The wind and solar energy that can be generated by the plants currently being built in China amounts to the gigantic sum of 339 gigawatts. With 64 percent of the solar and wind energy capacity currently under construction worldwide, China is building almost twice as much capacity as all other countries combined.[2] Even though China is the globally biggest emitter of CO2 in total, its per-capita emission is with about 8 t half as big as the one by US with 16 t. After the unfortunate dropout of the United States government from the concerted efforts to fight global warming, it would be all the more a sign of hope if China showed to be a motor of progress in ecological transformation.
29. We are meeting here as the global climate conference COP30 in Belem, Brazil is struggling for a result that will open the door for an ambitious global climate policy as part of the great ecological transformation needed. As WCC, together with faithful people from all over the world, we are present in Belem. I have myself, before traveling to China, gone to Belem and tried to participate in our efforts there to make the prophetic voice of the churches visible and noticeable.
30. We have called there for an ecological metanoia – transforming our hearts, our economies, and our civilizations. We have pointed to the wisdom of Indigenous peoples who have been faithful stewards of God's creation for generations, and we have advocated for a climate finance that brings liberation, not new chains of debt.
31. Together with all faith communities we are pressing three key demands: ambitious national climate action plans with real accountability, climate finance as justice through grants instead of loans and debt cancellation, and a just transition toward genuine socio-ecological transformation that centers Indigenous wisdom and rejects false solutions.
Towards a good life
32. The transformation we need is as spiritual as it is societal and political. As churches we are advocates for a good life, a life with God – a life that finds fulfillment on a very deep level. A life that rediscovers simplicity. A life that moves from fear to trust. A life that is characterized by gratitude rather than dissatisfaction. A life that radiates love as the defining force of inter-human relationship. A life that lives in peace with nonhuman nature.
33. Such a life is no sacrifice. It is – in the opposite – an immense gain in quality of life. The metanoia we call for is not contradictory to the enjoyment of life. It is the open door to a fulfilled life. Not the unlimited growth of material wealth is its goal but the unlimited growth of relationship wealth.
34. If you want to temporarily dive into such a life, visit Anafora monastery in Egypt or any other similar places in the world. Anaphora’s homemade olive oil and mango jam which I brought home from my visit there still gladden my heart. They remind me of those beautiful places in the world which give room for an ecumenism of the head, the heart, and the hands and feet – and maybe even the tongue!
35.Let us host each other in these beautiful places, wherever they are. Let us strengthen each other in the experience of the ecumenical community. And let us then, freshly nurtured, go out in the world and tell it on the mountains, over the hills, and everywhere that Jesus Christ is born.
[1] https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/a-message-from-the-world-council-of-churches-fourth-global-ecumenical-theological-institute-geti-2025-to-the-sixth-world-conference-on-faith-and-order-at-wadi-el-natrun-egypt-15-september-29-october-2025
[2] https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/chinas-solar-and-onshore-wind-capacity-reaches-new-heights-while-offshore-wind-shows-promise/.
