WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29222, 4 June 1960, Page 15

WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

Message Sent For Whitsuntide

“While there are religions and philosophies, new and old, resurgent in Asia and other continents, we have our firm foundation in the promise given by our Lord on the day of His ascension,” the presidents of the World Council of Churches say in their Whitsuntide message to member churches.

Greetings from the six presidents are contained in “Church and Community,” the journal of the National Council of Churches in New Zealand. The presidents are Dr. John Baillie (Edinburgh). Bishop Sante Überto Barbieri (Buenos Aires), Bishop Otto Dibelius (Berlin), Archbishop lakovos (New York), the Metropolitan Juhonon Mar Thoma (JTiruvella) and Bishop Henry Cox Sherrill, of Boxford, Massachusetts.

“As presidents of the World Council of Churches we greet our bretheren in all member churches at Whitsuntide. We reioice in the gift of that oneness in Christ which enlightened His followers when the day of Pentecost was fully come. “This year we are confronted with the spiritual task of making straight the way for the first assembly to be held by the World Council of Churches in Asia in 1961,” says the message.

“As sons and fellow workers with God, we become true brothers, bearing one another’s burdens. The church, which has the promise of victory, is called to reach out to the millions of men and women who struggle for a life free of fear, hunger, injustice, dispossession, persecution .and political or spiritual oppression.

“In view of this great mission, we who work for the greater unity and strength of the church humbly proclaim this yeas’s Whitsuntide as a day of universal prayer, so that God's spirit may be brought to those who ’were afar off and to them that ‘were nigh.’ “With renewed faith, with love and compassion, we call upon all the churches of Christ and all Christians to reconsider their duty in the light of the Spirit given to us, and to rededicate themselves as witnesses to Christ.”

Whitsuntide is celebrated tomorrow.