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Contact: World Council of Churches, +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
Organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) as part of the Living Letters initiative, the visit reflects the WCC's focus on the troubled region, where it sees the ongoing presence and witness of churches as crucial in the struggle for a just peace.
Although they are a minority in Israel and Palestine, Christians are active and visible in public life. The delegation will learn about the role of the churches in the area, including the work of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The EAPPI aims to work alongside Palestinians and Israelis in their nonviolent actions for peace and to carry out concerted advocacy efforts to end the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.
The visit will include meetings with Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, human rights groups (both Palestinian and Israeli) and ecumenical organizations, as well as an exposure to the conditions of life under occupation and successful community projects in the area.
The international team will be hosted by the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre, an initiative of the Jerusalem churches in association with the Middle East Council of Churches and the WCC. The Centre is a coordination point for ecumenical action in and for Jerusalem and its churches.
The members of the ecumenical delegation are:
Metropolitan of Transylvania Prof. Dr Laurentiu Streza, Romanian Orthodox Church
Fr. Dr. Emanuel Clapsis, Ecumenical Patriarchate, USA
Prof. Dr. Nancy Cardoso, Igreja Metodista do Brazil
Ms Margareta Brosnan, CARITAS, Australia
Mrs Nancy Adams, Scottish Episcopal Church
WCC staff:
Dr Aruna Gnanadason, Executive Director, Planning and Integration
Ms Emma Halgren, WCC Intern - Communication
Interpreter:
Mr Ciprian Ioan Streza, Romanian Orthodox Church
The international ecumenical solidarity visit to Palestine/Israel is part of the WCC Living Letters initiative. Living Letters are small ecumenical teams visiting a country to listen, learn, share approaches and help to confront challenges in order to overcome violence, promote and pray for peace. Until 2010, several Living Letters visits take place each year throughout the world in the context of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence in order to prepare for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation to be held in Jamaica in 2011.
Media contact in Jerusalem: Yusef Daher, phone: +972 50 554 5179.
Sixty Years of WCC Policy on Palestine/Israel, 1948-2007 (in brief)
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3628
WCC member churches in Israel/Palestine
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4746
Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel
http://www.eappi.org/
Middle East Council of Churches
http://www.mec-churches.org/main_eng.htm
Churches in the Middle East: solidarity and witness for peace
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3113
Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
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 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
