WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES co-sponsors International Congress on the Human Right to Peace
Peace as a universal human right has been the focus of an international congress co-sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC). The WCC worked in collaboration with the Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law (SSIHRL), Forum 2010 and the Institute for Peace Studies (Alexandria, Egypt) to organize the International Congress on the Human Right to Peace, held on 9-10 December 2010 in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Discussion at the congress centred on the final text of a declaration on the Human Right to Peace which has been elaborated by international experts and has been the product of a four-year campaign launched by the SSIHRL and supported by numerous civil society organizations. This declaration represents civil society’s contribution to the on-going process that the United Nations started in order to issue a declaration on people’s right to peace.
The “Santiago Declaration” will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council where UN member states will be invited to initiate the official codification of the human right to the peace. The congress also presented a statute for the future creation of an International Observatory on the Human Right to Peace.
The International Congress was chaired by Dr Theodor Van Boven, professor emeritus at the Maastricht University, former moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, former director of the UN Human Rights Division and former special rapporteur on torture of the UN Human Rights Council. UN officials, international human rights activists, academics and representatives of civil and faith-based communities were among the participants in the congress.
The Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, spoke during the opening session on the importance of dialogue among civilizations, tolerance and the culture of peace. He told the congress, “Throughout history, civilizations and societies have progressed through interaction and dialogue. There is a need to enhance our mutual understanding so as to address the numerous challenges that are posing a threat to peace and to commonly shared values, such as justice, respect for human dignity and human rights.”
Among the coordinators of the congress was Christina Papazoglou of the WCC human rights programme.
Orthodox consultation focuses on Christian unity in theological education
Thirty representatives of Orthodox institutions gathered in mid-November 2010 at the Andrei Saguna theological faculty in Sibiu, Romania to reflect on the topic “The Ecumenical Movement in Theological Education and the Life of Orthodox Churches”. This discussion was moderated by Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople).
According to a communiqué issued at the close of the consultation: “There is a broad official agreement among the Orthodox churches concerning the general direction of Orthodox ecumenical engagement. However, at many levels of church life there is a wide diversity of opinion among the Orthodox concerning inter-Christian and interfaith issues. This demonstrates that there is as yet no unanimous Orthodox theological understanding of how to relate to other Christians and other faiths. Orthodox churches should use their theological faculties and seminaries as academic laboratories to generate discussion on acute issues debated in ecumenical circles. An attempt should be made to engage all Orthodox voices in this, especially those who may be most opposed to dialogue.”
The communiqué concludes with a recommendation that the World Council of Churches coordinate, in collaboration with Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston (USA), a meeting of representatives from a broad spectrum of Orthodox faculties to discuss the further development of an ecumenical ethos in theological education.
Full text of the communiqué
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-programmes/ecumenical-movement-in-the-21st-century/member-churches/inter-orthodox-consultation-on-the-ecumenical-movement-in-theological-education-and-orthodox-church-life.html
