“The question of the visible unity of Christians was at the origin of the ecumenical movement, which sought to respond to a major problem of the church’s mission,” H.E. Metropolitan Prof. Dr Job (Getcha), Metropolitan of Pisidia, and vice moderator of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order, said in an address to the five-day conference on its final day, 28 October.
About 400 participants gathered for the conference, organized by the WCC Commission on Faith and Order at the Logos Papal Center of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Wadi El Natrun, southwest of Alexandria, Egypt.
The conference theme – “Where Now for Visible Unity?”– is being addressed from the interrelated perspectives of faith, mission, and unity.
During a morning plenary, the conference focused on the perspective of unity, with contributions by speakers from Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Pentecostal church traditions.
“The division of Christians is an obstacle to the mission: how can we bear witness to Christ in an effective and plausible manner if we present ourselves as divided?” asked Metropolitan Job.
However, churches have already reached many significant agreements that have borne considerable fruit these toward visible unity in recent decades, he noted.
These include the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation, which sought to deal with one of the main points at issue between Roman Catholics and Protestants at the time of the 16th century Reformation.
“The methodological novelty of this declaration lies in the recognition that the unity of faith can be carried by a difference of languages, theological forms and particular emphases, and one can therefore speak of a ‘differentiated consensus,’” said Metropolitan Job.
