The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Prof. Dr. Jerry Pillay, greeted a Chinese congregation in Jiangsu Province on Sunday.
On May 26, Rev. Prof. Dr. Pillay offered a greeting at St. Paul’s Church in Nanjing, the second stop during his first visit to China since he took office as the WCC general secretary in January 2023.
According to WCC, Rev. Prof. Pillay is visiting China from May 23-28, “where he will meet with the China Christian Council (CCC), WCC member churches, and inter-religious partners.”
Prof. Dr. Vasile-Octavian Mihoc, WCC program executive for Ecumenical Relations and Faith and Order, comes along with him. Xuebin Zhou, a teacher at Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, serves as the interpreter for the delegation.
“Pastors, sisters, and brothers, I greet you in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus.” Rev. Prof. Pillay greeted the Chinese congregation, “We just came out of the experience of Pentecost and Pentecost tells how the Spirit brings us all together. It doesn’t matter from which part of the world, it doesn’t matter of your race, culture, or language; but when we are in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are all one.”
“I really greet you with the World Council of Churches, trying to bring greetings to you. There are 352 member churches and over 600 million Christians from 120 countries in the world. ”
Stressing that WCC is the largest ecumenical body in the world that works for church unity and justice, Rev. Prof. Pillay said, “I know that the world has a lot of challenges as we look around today [and] see so much tension, conflict, and wars and struggles, but we also know that God uses us as instruments to change the world.”
“We are pleased to have you as a congregation, a part of the World Council of Churches,” Pillay stated, stating that WCC’s special joy is to be able to connect with the China Christian Council. Noting that CCC is a longstanding member church of the WCC, he added that Rev. Lin Manhong, who accompanies him during the visit, is one of the 25-member executive committee members, stressing the Chinese involvement in the WCC leadership.
He continued, “[I] … pray for you to be a witness in China and may free you as Christians, as I was praying this morning that you continue to be the salt and light in this part of the Lord.”
The WCC reported that this trip to China is “to engage with church and religious leaders at national and regional levels in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing.”
Rev. Prof. Pillay’s visit to China started with a meeting with Shanghai church leaders on May 23, in which he shared the WCC’s future vision, particularly the “plans for the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicaea Council in 2025.” The WCC general secretary emphasized the contextualization of Christian theology in the Chinese context and looked for “a closer collaboration” with the Shanghai CC.
The next day, the WCC delegation met Rev. Wu Wei, president of the China Christian Council (CCC), and Rev. Xu Xiaohong, chairman of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). The talk covered the changes in China in the past decades, the church’s efforts in poverty alleviation, the issues of “secularization and commercialization of faith,” and the willingness for closer cooperation. Rev. Wu introduced that there are roughly 38 million Protestants in China, 12,000 ordained pastors, and 40,000 full-time preachers. A total of 22 seminaries and Bible schools, where there are about 3,500 students, produce 1,100 graduates every year for the Church in China.
Received by the Jiangsu CC&TSPM on the same day, the WCC delegation was informed about the overall situation of churches in Jiangsu, where “there are around 1,000 pastors and elders serving 1,400 congregations.”
In Nanjing, Pillay also visited the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and Amity Printing Company.
During their stay in Beijing, the WCC delegation will visit the “State Administration for Religious Affairs, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, and the Chinese Islamic Association.”
