Faith and Order Standing Commission Convenes in Holy Etchmiadzin
21/6/2010
On June 21, the five day meeting of the Faith and Order Standing Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) convened in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. The meeting is being held in the Mother See upon the invitation His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians. 31 representatives of Christian Churches are participating in the meetings. His Grace Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian and Rev. Fr. Shahe Ananian serve on the committee representing the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church.
During the meeting, working groups will discuss several agenda items – “The Mission and Nature of the Church”; “The Sources of Ecclesiastical Authority”; and “The Moral Issues of the Churches”.
The primary goal of Faith and Order is: “to proclaim the oneness of the church of Jesus Christ and to call the churches to the goal of visible unity”. The chief means of achieving this goal is through study programs, dealing with theological questions that divide the churches. Through consultations organized around the world, members of the Faith and Order Commission, together with other invited church members, meet in groups to continue the dialogue process and produce texts and study documents. These documents, while having no authority of their own over any church, are of significance and use by virtue of having been composed by a widely representative group of people from various Christian traditions. Most of these texts are sent to the churches for study and comment.
