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This report outlines the activities of the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches during the years 1999-2005 and includes three completed study documents, as well as some themes pursued and issues addressed.

Those wishing to do bible studies on the week of prayer theme can use as a basis the biblical texts and reflections given in the "eight days". Each day the discussions can lead to a closing period of intercessory prayer.

At the centre of the worship service proposed for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2001 lies the theme for the week as chosen from John 14: 6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life".

Thanks to the great arc of the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube and the Black Sea, Romania is easy to find on any map. Culturally speaking it lies at the cross-roads between eastern and western Europe. Ninety-nine percent of its population of just over 22 million people call themselves Christian. As regards other communities of faith, there are 9,000 Jews and 56,000 Muslims. A few thousand people declare themselves to be atheists or of no faith.

The report results from seven years' work by a dedicated group drawn from the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The character of the document is intentionally educational. The group believed that it would in this way best serve the interest of all who wish to know not only the Joint Working Group's agenda but the growing relationship of the WCC and the RCC within the broader perspective of the one ecumenical movement which the group has witnessed and in some measure assisted.

The Joint Working Group is convinced that the work of the past five years has been worthwhile. At the same time a great many things remain to be done. The Lord's demand is clear: that they may be one in order that the world may believe" (John 17,21). As we face this demand we are keenly aware of how much we still fall short of giving to the world the sign of communion which should arouse its faith in the love of the Father who sends his Son to save us.

The aim of the present document is to set out briefly the concrete results of the exchanges that have already taken place, and to indicate a vision of the future in which the Joint Working Group foresees the need for constantly more dynamic relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches.

After several preliminary meetings between representatives of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity and of the World Council of Churches, the mandate for the Joint Working Group was presented to and adopted by the Central Committee at its meeting in Nigeria in January 1965. It was thereafter also officially accepted by the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church. In working out this project, the Roman Catholic side was guided by the Decree on Ecumenism, promulgated at the end of the third session of the Vatican Council; while the representatives of the World Council of Churches based their approach on the main lines of several WCC documents that describe the nature and function of the World Council and on various statements made by the World Council on the contemporary ecumenical situation.