WCC NEWS:“Reclaiming the Spirit of Life and Work for Ecumenical Renewal”

Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the 1925 Stockholm conference on Life and Work, the World Council of Churches (WCC) journal The Ecumenical Review is charting the significance of the conference and the movement it initiated for the worldwide ecumenical movement. The King and Queen of Sweden welcome the delegates to the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work, Stockholm, Sweden, 1925 18 August 2025 “It was the first large-scale gathering of leaders of Anglican, Protestant, and Orthodox churches after the carnage of the First World War,” editor Dr Stephen G. Brown writes in the editorial. Together they spoke out for justice, peace, and reconciliation, and the conference inspired the Life and Work movement, which later joined with the Faith and Order movement dealing with overcoming doctrinal differences to form the WCC in 1948. “The Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work, held in Stockholm in 1925, marked a landmark in ecumenical history,” writes Brown. One hundred years later, thousands of participants, including global and national church leaders, will gather again in Stockholm 18-24 August, for a week of ecumenical anniversary celebrations. Articles in the issue discuss the pioneering role of Swedish Archbishop Nathan Söderblom in the realization of the Stockholm conference; and the links between the Life and Work and Faith and Order movements. Another article focuses on the participation of Orthodox churches in the conference in a year that, like 2025, marked the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the first attempt to reach consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom. The Life and Work movement provided the basis for the WCC's action on justice and peace after the Second World War., and articles discuss the contemporary significance of WCC programmes such as promoting a Just, Participatory, and Sustainable Society, and the Conciliar Process for Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. In the article that opens the issue, the WCC’s programme director for Life, Justice, and Peace, Rev. Dr Kennth Mtata asks how the WCC and the wider ecumenical movement can reconnect with the spirit of the Life and Work movement. “The Stockholm movement stimulated an ecumenical way to perceive the forces that threatened life and to marshal individual and collective Christian response through prayer, worship, study, and joint strategic action guided by the principles of God’s reign,” writes Mtata. “It is the spirit of such a movement that we must invoke today as we perceive the same forces of death and destruction militating against God's people and God's creation.” The Ecumenical Review is published by Wiley on behalf of the WCC. The issue is available online (free to read) Selected articles (read only) in this issue of The Ecumenical Review: Stephen G. Brown, Editorial Kenneth Mtata, Reclaiming the Spirit of Life and Work for Ecumenical Renewal Jonas Jonson, Nathan Söderblom and the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work Sara Gehlin, Between Stockholm and Lausanne: On Unity, Peace, and an Ecumenism of the Heart Open Access articles in this issue of The Ecumenical Review: Natallia Vasilevich, Orthodox Participation in the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work, Stockholm, 1925 Ernst M. Conradie, Revisiting the Quest for a Just, Participatory, and Sustainable Society More information about The Ecumenical Review 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

WCC NEWS: Latest issue of The Ecumenical Review offers “reflections on the oikoumene”

Taking its cue from a lecture by former World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Philip Potter, the October issue of the WCC quarterly The Ecumenical Review explores the meaning of the “oikoumene,” which in Greek refers to the whole inhabited earth and gives “ecumenism” its name. Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC 28 October 2021 In a 1974 lecture titled “The Love of Power or the Power of Love,” Potter described the oikoumene as “the sphere of God’s Reign, and his is the reign of love, the re-uniting of humanity from separation.” The ecumenical movement, he said, is “God’s call to us to become participants in his purpose of bringing the whole oikoumene under his power of love.” This issue of The Ecumenical Review offers reflections on the meaning of the oikoumene for the  ecumenical movement. Articles range from the struggle against racism, to the ecumenical engagement for human rights; from the challenge to the oikoumene from climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, to “unheard voices” in discussions of human sexuality; the need to address the sensual side of knowledge, cultures, religion, and theology; as well as how churches can become models of “unity in reconciled diversity.” The issue also includes a set of tributes to Potter, the WCC’s first general secretary from the global South, who was born 100 years ago on 19 August 1921 and who died on 31 March 2015. In the editorial, Stephen G. Brown notes that Potter’s lecture on the “power of love” offers insights for the forthcoming WCC assembly in 2022, where for the first time “love” forms part of an assembly theme: “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” The Ecumenical Review is published four times a year by Wiley on behalf of the WCC.   Read an Open Access article from the latest issue by Claudia Jahnel: “The universal word speaks only in dialect”: Postcolonial Impulses for an Ecumenism of Sensual Unity and an Aesthetic Ecumenical Theology Table of contents of latest issue Free sample issue: “Christ’s Love in the Midst of Pandemic: Moving the World to Reconciliation and Solidarity.”  More information about The Ecumenical Review Subscriptions to The Ecumenical Review 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 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney Geneve 2 1211 Switzerland