Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, reflects below on outcomes from the Life and Work Centenary Consultation in Athens in May 2025, and how those form a message for the ongoing Ecumenical Week in Stockholm.
The WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs held its Life and Work Centenary Consultation in Athens in May 2025. What would you highlight as the main outcomes of the conference?
Prove: The Athens conference was an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of 100 years of the ecumenical Life and Work movement, its historical significance to the WCC, and its relevance to today's global circumstances. It was a salutary opportunity, because participants observed how similar the challenges addressed in Stockholm in 1925 are in many ways to our current global situation, and how relevant the analysis and reflections then are to how the ecumenical movement should respond to the constellation of converging global crises today.
It was also an opportunity to build a bridge between the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea – the 1700th anniversary of which we also commemorate in this year – and the 1925 Stockholm Conference. As the Athens conference message says: "The Nicaean Creed was founded on the Holy Scriptures as a concise expression of the written and oral tradition of the Church's continuous spiritual experience. From this foundation, Stockholm urged the practical application of the Christian faith to the burning issues of that time. The 1925 Stockholm Conference … was consciously envisaged as 'a Nicaea for ethics, for practical Christianity.' "
The final message of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs consultation in Athens has a strong connection with the Stockholm conference in 1925 and its focus on the Christian calling to work for justice and peace. Do you think churches have been up to their task these 100 years, as today it seems there is even less justice and less peace in the world?
Prove: The primary thrust of the Stockholm Conference was to affirm and promote the responsibility of the churches for the whole life of people and society, and to move Christian ethics from a matter of individual concern to that of communal responsibility. In the lingering aftermath of the First World War, and at a time when a renewed arms race and spiraling economic inequality presaged a further and even greater paroxysm of violence, issues of justice and peace were central to the discussions in Stockholm.
Obviously, conflict is on the rise in many parts of the world today, with catastrophic impacts on affected populations and profound and deepening risks for the world as a whole. In some cases, churches have effectively been complicit in the resurgence of violence, or have done too little to prevent it.
But as the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs conference in Athens acknowledged, each and every day local churches and communities of faith around the world continue their persistent, determined, faithful work to build peace, to resolve conflicts and to promote human rights and social cohesion – to maintain "everyday peace" in communities – as well as to provide humanitarian assistance and support in emergencies, and to care for migrants and refugees in search of a better and safer life.
What would you point out as the key messages of Athens consultation to the participants of the current Ecumenical Week in Stockholm, and to the churches and Christians worldwide?
Prove: One of the central ideas that emerged from the 1925 Stockholm Conference and from subsequent iterations of the Life and Work movement was the importance of developing international law and systems of multilateral cooperation to guard against conflict and to protect the vulnerable from violations of their rights and dignity by the powerful. And this is a focus that was embedded in the mandate of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.
A big difference between the context of the 1925 Stockholm Conference and now is the extraordinary evolution of international legal norms and standards that has taken place in the meantime, and especially in the post-World War II period. The ecumenical movement has contributed in important ways to the development of these laws and systems.
But we are living in a time of proliferating populist nationalism in many parts of the world – a phenomenon to which churches have in some cases unfortunately associated themselves. This runs utterly counter to the direction of the Life and Work movement, and to the ecumenical Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity.
In this context we must, as the Athens conference message says, "update and deepen our ecumenical and interfaith reflections and dialogue on the relationship between religion and state. We must renew our commitment to economic justice and solidarity. And especially in this time of social media echo chambers filled with mis- and dis-information, we must recommit to the task of education and capacity-building for dialogue, solidarity and unity."
Moreover, the ecumenical movement must rise to the defence of the principles and instruments of unity, multilateral cooperation, justice, human rights, and mutual accountability under law, for which we have worked since before the WCC's establishment, because they are under very deliberate attack.
But it's also important to recognize that ecumenical togetherness is itself a powerful witness for unity, reconciliation, peace and justice. As the Athens conference observed: "By their coming together as well as by their discussions, the participants in the Stockholm Conference provided an example and a message of encounter, dialogue, and cooperation as the path to peace, justice, and reconciliation."
Looking at the global situation today, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs conference message underlines that: "The witness of the ecumenical movement for unity amidst division is once again an urgent calling in a world that is on an accelerating trajectory of fragmentation, confrontation and conflict, and away from justice, solidarity, and peace, one hundred years after the Stockholm Conference."
From the Athens conference message once again: "Inspired by the Stockholm Conference, we proclaim again the central importance of encounter, relationship and dialogue, focusing as an ecumenical movement on what unites us especially in our Christian faith, and the multilateralism and commitment to dialogue, cooperation and solidarity that we seek to restore in the wider world."
What are your expectations from the discussions in Stockholm and worldwide, as churches mark the 100 years anniversary of the Stockholm conference?
Prove: I hope that these events – in Athens and in Stockholm – can serve as landmarks in the modern history of the ecumenical movement, in which we not only commemorate events one hundred years ago but strive to recapture the spirit of Life and Work for ecumenical renewal, and for our witness in the wider world.
Many people around the world are looking for moral leadership in a time of increasing uncertainty, anxiety and fear about the future, in view of the bewildering convergence of global crises of escalating conflict, spiraling economic inequality, and unprecedented environmental crisis.
In particular, the global climate crisis represents an existential challenge of a kind not faced by any previous generation, with profound implications for all future generations of life on Earth, and compounding every other challenge. As the WCC central committee stated at its meeting in Johannesburg in June: "This is a moment in which our actions or inaction – especially with regard to climate justice – will define the future for our children, and their children's children, and for the whole Living Planet."
I believe that in this pivotal historical moment churches and the ecumenical movement must once again be leading voices for unity and cooperation in facing these challenges that confront us all.
From your experience working with the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, what have been the cases where engagement of churches in peacebuilding and work for justice in the world have been especially inspiring?
Prove: In every case where churches or individual Christians seek to lead others on paths of peace and justice, and against the prevailing culture of conflict and injustice, they are walking in the footsteps of Jesus. Those examples are innumerable, but often much too little recognized. To mention only some would be a dis-service to all the others. But they are the "confessing church" today.
Originally from the World Council of Churches
CCD reprinted with permission
