WCC News: Ecumenical Review reflects on theme of Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order

As the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order prepares to meet in Egypt, the World Council of Churches (WCC) journal The Ecumenical Review reflects on its theme “Where Now for Visible Unity?” 23 October 2025, Wadi El Natrun, Egypt: Banenr pictured at the World Council of Churches Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order taking place 24-28 October 2025 in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt, around the theme “Where now for visible unity?” Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC 23 October 2025 Organized by the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order, the conference is taking place from 24 to 28 October 2025 at the Logos Papal Center of the Coptic Orthodox Church, close to the St Bishoy Monastery at Wadi El Natrun, southwest of Alexandria, Egypt. “At this moment in the life of the church, the vision of unity must be rearticulated not as a fixed destination but as a pilgrimage,” the moderator of the Faith and Order commission, Rev. Prof. Dr Stephanie Dietrich, writes in the article that opens this issue. “The Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order presents a unique opportunity for the churches to renew their commitment to this pilgrimage,” she adds. World Conferences on Faith and Order have been held since 1927 at key moments in the history of the ecumenical movement, and the last such conference was held in 1993 in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Each conference, Dietrich writes, “has wrestled in different ways with what it means to seek ‘visible unity’ – a unity that is not merely organic, structural, doctrinal, spiritual, or symbolic but embodied in the common faith, life, worship, witness, and service of the churches.” The question of visible unity takes on renewed urgency in an increasingly fragmented world, she underlines, which faces crises of trust, justice, and peace and where the church often appears divided and uncertain its response. “What shape might it take amid the shifting contours of global Christianity? And how might a new generation of ecumenical dialogue re-engage the call to be one body in a fractured world?” It is issues such as these that the articles in this issue of The Ecumenical Reviewseek to address. In so doing, they note also the significant context in which the Sixth World Conference takes place, 1700 years after the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea which met in 325 CE – the first attempt to reach consensus in the church through an assembly representing the whole of Christendom. Table of Contents Stephanie Dietrich: Visible Unity in a Fragmented World: A Vision for the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order, “Where Now for Visible Unity?” (Read only version) Open Access articles in the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review: Antje Jackelén: Baptismal Ecclesiology: A Relational Theological Perspective Andrew G. Suderman: The Nicene Creed: Remembering What It Says; Re-membering What It Forgot to Say: A Mennonite Perspective Maria Munkholt Christensen: Nicaea and Women’s Ordained Ministry See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland