EKD Press Releases
EKD Council Chairperson is Guest of Honor of Anglican Primate
Rowan Williams: Wolfgang Huber is one of the most important Christian voices in Europe
September 10, 2009
The Chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Bishop Wolfgang Huber, has come out in favor of a change of perspective in the ecumenical movement. "The unity of the churches does not need to be reinvented. This unity is the ground on which we stand. In my view, this change of perspective is the decisive step towards the ecumenical reorientation we need today," said Huber in his keynote lecture given on the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on Thursday 10 September in London. The head of about 80 million Anglicans said that he was "delighted to be able to welcome Bishop Huber in Lambeth Palace". Wolfgang Huber was not just an "esteemed friend and colleague" but, with his outstanding statements on social questions, "one of the most important Christian voices in Europe."
In his presentation, the Chairman of the EKD Council spoke of the "ecumenical agenda at the beginning of the 21st century" and the "hymn to unity" in the Letter to the Ephesians (4:4-6), which extols an "ecumenism of the indicative". The text "first tells us what we are ecumenically and then prescribes what we are to become ecumenically". Such ecumenism "makes room for diversity but also trusts in the power of unity in Christian faith". According to Bishop Huber, "That is a dynamic understanding of unity for which we have even had political equivalents in recent European history. Twenty years after the peaceful political turnaround in Europe, we gratefully acknowledge that we were given a unity in diversity which for a long time we had not even dared to hope for. Giving it shape is the great political challenge confronting us in Europe, a process to which we as churches want to contribute."
The "obstacles to ecumenism" in the last few years have included the lack of agreement on the understanding of ministry, which "significantly hampers the mutual perception of one another as the church." Bishop Huber stated further, "It is my hope that the second decade will witness the emergence of a different approach to this question. I am convinced that there can only be ecumenical progress when the ecumenical partners mutually respect each other's way of being church."
Huber praised the relations between the EKD and the Church of England, which had long since "gone beyond the stage of theological discussion". Starting from the Meissen Declaration, in which the two churches had-among other things-agreed on altar fellowship, "many lively encounters" were developing between parishes and regional churches from Germany and dioceses in England. "It is still of great significance that these ecumenical bonds between us contribute to the process of reconciliation between our two peoples that has led us out of the guilt and burden of our history of hostility to a new community of peace and common responsibility," stated Huber. "Mourning and shame in view of the countless number of victims mingles with wonder and gratitude for the readiness to seek reconciliation that emerged from the rubble of that war."
Hanover, September 10, 2009
Press Office of the EKD
Silke Römhild