GENEVA (RNS/ENI) The global ecumenical movement must bring the hope of peace and justice to a suffering and divided world, said the new general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit.
“As we enter into the second decade of the 21st century, the world continues to face many crises … financial crisis, climate crisis, a food crisis, a new wave of terrorism and violence, new burdens of injustice and violations of human rights,” said Tveit, preaching on Monday (Jan. 11) at the WCC’s headquarters in Geneva.
“We start this year also with a greater concern for the religious freedom of some of our Christian sisters and brothers in several places,” noted Tveit, a Norwegian pastor who assumed leadership of the world’s biggest church umbrella group.
The WCC counts 349 churches — mostly Anglican, Orthodox and Protestant — and represents some 500 million Christians worldwide. Tveit, 49, was elected to the WCC’s top post in August.
“In this beloved ecumenical movement, we also enter into the depths of this world and its suffering and divisions — and together, we shall be the voice calling to newness of life in the name of the beloved Son,” he said.
Tveit is the former general secretary of the (Lutheran) Church of Norway’s Council on Ecumenical and International Relations. He is the second Lutheran to head the WCC in its 62-year history. He succeeds the Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist from Kenya, who stepped down at the end of 2009.
