wcc 1998

wcc 1998

wcc 1998.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is to withdraw from the World Council of Churches, in the wake of criticisms it has made of the Geneva-based organization's style and direction. The WCC, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding this year, has more than 330 member churches, including virtually all the world's mainstream church bodies, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church.

But in recent years the Orthodox churches have grown impatient with what they see as the Protestant dominance of the WCC's agenda and preoccupation with developments seen as Western and liberal, such as women's ordination and the use of modern, ecumenical liturgy. The arrival of Protestant missionaries in Eastern Europe following the end of communist rule has also kindled hostility to Protestantism.
Said a spokesman for the Bulgarian church's synod: "We have no intention of ending ecumenical church contacts or cutting links with other Christian organizations. But our church took the decision to leave last April, and will circulate its explanation shortly. We have not consulted other Orthodox churches about this announcement and cannot comment on their intentions." The decision was confirmed by the church's synod in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, on July 22. According The spokesman added that the criticisms underlying the move had all been listed in a statement after a meeting of Orthodox leaders at Thessaloniki in early May, which had voiced fears that WCC activities were contributing to what he described as "a dissolution of the truths of faith." In May 1997 the Georgian Orthodox Church became the first to confirm its departure from the WCC and another ecumenical organization, the Conference of European Churches. Delegates attending the 8th assembly of the World Council of Churches in Harare converged in the Worship Tent yesterday to mark the official recommitment churches in the 50th anniversary year of the council.




Council (which met in Rome from 1962 to 1965). There were official Roman Catholic observers for the first time at the WCC’s Third Assembly in New Delhi, and the WCC sent two observers to the four autumn sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Several articles below deal with the Second Vatican Council, including assessments by the Protestant theologian Karl Barth and Lukas Vischer, one of the WCC observers and later director of the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order. The official participation of the Roman Catholic Church in the ecumenical movement was strengthened by the promulgation in November 1964 of the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism called Unitatis Redintegratio (Latin for "Restoration of unity"). This decree described the ecumenical movement as being "fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit" for "the restoration of unity among all Christians"

Despite a shared commitment to common witness within the one ecumenical movement, the Roman Catholic Church decided in 1972 not to seek WCC membership in part because of the disparities between the structure, self-understanding and size of the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC and its member churches. This is reflected in the report below “Patterns of Relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches,” and is discussed in greater length in the article by Jan Grootaers, “An Unfinished Agenda.” Although the Roman Catholic Church is not a member of the WCC, there is official cooperation at various levels including a Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC set up in 1965 as a forum for exploring collaboration and cooperation, participation of Roman Catholics as full members in the WCC’s Faith and Order Commission, as well as the common preparation of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Representatives of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, whose 12 dioceses claim the loyalty of 87 percent of the country's 9 million citizens, indicated in May their intention to leave the WCC. In a statement on July 16 the Bulgarian church's diocese of Central and Western Europe argued that the WCC had failed to bring "satisfactory achievements" in Christian theological dialogue, and that Bulgaria had been overrun by a "swarm of proselytizing sects," acting with the protection of "long-established Protestant churches.#fastitlinks