Christian Today
Feb 15 2005

WCC Central Committee Meeting Focuses on Reconciliation & Healing

Catholicos Aram I, Lebanon (Left) and WCC General Secretary Rev. Dr.
Samuel Kobia (Peter Williams / WCC)

Opening Worship (Peter Williams / WCC)

Opening actions: Introduction, consensus procedures (Peter Williams /
WCC)

The World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee meeting opens
on 15th February and will continue until February 22. The meeting
aims to prepare for the ninth assembly of the Council, which meets in
Porto Alegre, Brazil, in February 2006, with the theme “God, in your
grace, transform the world”.

The WCC central committee this year gathers under the overall theme
of “Healing and reconciliation”. On 15th February, the Moderator,
Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, called on the worldwide
church to rediscover healing as a comprehensive ministry that
transforms, empowers and reconciles.

Citing the tragedy that happened ninety years ago when the Ottoman
empire began to kill the Armenians within its borders, a million and
a half Armenian lives were claimed, Catholicos Aram urged the church
worldwide to take responsibility for recovering the history.

“The past haunts the victims,” Aram I said, “We cannot free ourselves
from the past unless that past is duly recognised.”

“God’s mission calls for a healing church in the midst of a broken,
fragmented and alienated world,” he continued.

According to Aram I, this reconciliation is something more than
political issue, “It is a change of consciousness, transformation of
attitudes, healing of memories.”

As churches reconcile with God, it also means reconciling with one
another and the whole creation, building bridges across religious,
social and cultural divides.

In addition, he emphasised the importance of confession in the
process of reconciliation. “Guilt must be admitted; truth must be
told”, Aram I said. Recognition and confession open the way to
forgiveness.

Through recognition, confession and forgiveness, both victim and
perpetrator can “liberate themselves from the bitterness of the past”
and, by looking for “restorative and transformative justice”, commit
themselves to “life together in peace with justice”.

In conclusion, six tasks were outlined as continuing priorities for
the ecumenical movement and the WCC in the years ahead:

– exploring what it means to “be church”;
– caring for life in all its forms;
– addressing contemporary ethical issues;
– viewing ecology as a moral, theological, and spiritual question;
– promoting reconciliation as a key element in mission; and
– challenging the dominant concepts and practices of power.

“God’s healing power transforms the ambiguity of human power, moving
the world from power that is absolute, centralised, violent and
self-sufficient to power that is vulnerable, accountable, non-violent
and shared,” said Arma I.

Eunice K. Y. Or