On Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s 85th birthday, WCC expresses gratitude

On the occasion of the 85th birthday of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary and WCC moderator of the central committee Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm expressed deep gratitude in a special letter.

“We praise God for the blessings that he has laid onto your life and all the blessings that come from your life to so many people,” reads the letter. “We in the WCC certainly belong to those who have received these blessings again and again.”

Pillay and Bedford-Strohm expressed gratitude for all the steps the Ecumenical Patriarch has taken to foster the search for the visible unity of the church. “We remember with joy many encounters with you, especially your visits at our Ecumenical Center in Geneva,” they wrote.

“We wholeheartedly join you in your claim that what the world truly needs is an authentic metanoia in the most existential sense of the term, that would entail an ecological transformation of each individual’s personal lifestyle as well as humanity’s communal patterns of behaviour grounded in a new civilisational ethos.”

Pillay and Bedford-Strohm promised to continue praying for the Ecumenical Patriarch. “May God bless you and the journey towards unity and common witness of all Christians,” they wrote.

Source: oikoumene.org