Search results

Reflections unfolding the 2022 Global Ecumenical Theological Institute theme and its sub-themes.

The Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch is marking its 1,500 Jubilee Year of Mor Jacob de Serugh (521+) (St Jacob of Serugh).

How can an experience be life-changing? If you have time, I invite you to read this small testimony of my theological pilgrimage during the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) 2018 experience, which was life-changing.  

In 2021, the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, known of her venerated saints, the like of Ephraim the Syrian (373+), St and Martyr Fabronia (304+), is marking the 1500 Jubilee Year of Mor Jacob de Serugh (St. Jacob of Serugh).

The aftermath of the pandemic will present enormous long-term political, social and economic challenges. After the pandemic has subsided, there will be an enormous financial cost to be calculated – especially in terms of increased government debt for almost every country. In particular, there is a very real risk that the UN Sustainable Development Goals will not be met. As Christians, we cannot use COVID-19 as an excuse for inaction and the preferential option for the poor must be recognised.

With the death and burial of Prince Philipp, Duke of Edinburgh, and husband of Queen Elizabeth II, of the English and the British Commonwealth throne, a kind of Orthodox Christian witness came into the fore, in the form of Christian Brotherhoods, quite unknown to Greece and the entire Orthodox world. Very few till now in Greece had known that there is also another kind of Orthodox Christian witness, that of the socially oriented and pastorally significant Brother- (and Sister-) hoods, especially in periods of crisis.

Who am I?

Bonhoeffer remembrance, April 2005
Ezek. 37:1-16, based on a Lenten devotional poem from prison
Theodore Gill, Ecumenical Centre Chapel, Geneva, on the 60th anniversary of Bonhoeffer's death.

In July 2014, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee adopted a statement entitled "Towards a Nuclear-free World." In the same year, on 4 August, on behalf of the world's 500 million Christians, WCC Asia president Dr Chang Sang visited Japan, and delivered this statement in person to the chief cabinet secretary of the Japanese government, Yoshihide Suga. The churches in Japan, which experienced Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were greatly encouraged by these WCC actions.

I will never forget those August days in 2015: Together with an ecumenical pilgrimage group, I came to Hiroshima to listen to the survivors of the atomic bombing 70 years before.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the political, economic and social life of a troubled world, already suffering by the financial crisis and imposed neoliberal austerity measures. With this current crisis, a strange unity has risen; a unity in fear of illness and death, anxious uncertainty for the future and collective mourning for the tens of thousands of deaths.

In August 1976, I was among those who gathered at the WCC headquarters in Geneva for a special event to mark the 70th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birth. On that occasion, Eberhard Bethge, his friend and biographer, remarked that it was difficult to think of Bonhoeffer as an old man of seventy years.

News of the bushfires that have ravaged Australia in recent months has been seen by millions around the world. Words like ‘unprecedented’ have been used to describe this national disaster, which has claimed the lives of 34 people and an estimated 1 billion animals.

As we approach the end of 2019, I am conscious that during this year we have celebrated many 30-year anniversaries. Europe in particular was witness to so much change in 1989.

For decades I have been trying – together with social movements – to raise awareness in our churches and politics that we in the rich North, particularly in Germany, are living at the expense of people and nature in the global South, and that we offload the consequences to other parts of the earth. My focus is on the subject of justice. I believe that there cannot be solutions to the climate crisis if the issues of resource and social justice are not addressed. Peace in the world also heavily depends on this.

This Christmas Season I will have concrete places in my mind when I listen to the story of the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. I will think of the Bedouin community in Suyica, near Yatta, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. They live in tents and in caves because they are not allowed to build houses. Together with about 20 Methodists from around the globe representing the World Methodist Council, we visited them in October.

Water is a key resource both to provide drinking water and to generate food and energy for a growing world population. A fifth of the global population lives in regions affected by water stress - in regions where more water is used than can naturally be recharged.

A thousand associations come to my mind when the theme is prayer: My Lutheran parents prayed for me and with me when I was a child, and my uncle who was a Baptist minister began dinners with long free prayers. In church and at home we sang Danish hymns with wordings such as: “All good gifts come from above” and “Now we all give thanks to God”.

Looking back on a year of Reformation commemorations, many churches ask themselves, what has changed, or what will change after this outstanding 500 years jubilee. We look back on an enormous engagement, from congregations to the worldwide level, to organize events and celebrations. The Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation pointed out clearly: “Salvation, human beings and creation are not for sale.” The three protestant churches of Austria – Lutheran, Reformed and Methodist - celebrated the 500-years Reformation Jubilee together with thousands of participants and proclaimed “Justice, Peace and Integrity of creation” as their main topics. No question: we are talking about the economy!