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“We feel especially close to you because, two years ago, our executive committee met in Abuja,” wrote WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay. “We were able to witness firsthand the great gifts of Nigeria and its peoples, the particular challenges you are addressing, and your labours as an ecumenical fellowship to encourage faith, reconciliation, and justice in your country.”
Pillay commended the Nigerian churches’ ecumenical journey. “Your recent initiative in climate-smart agriculture is one very good example of how you labour at the intersection of faith, development, and education, to alleviate poverty and food insecurity and to build community, especially with women and youth,” he wrote. “Through your creative work, you are literally planting seeds for Nigeria’s future!”
Pillay also reflected on the International Centre for Interfaith Peace and Harmony in Kaduna, where the churches have collaborated with each other, the WCC, and regional representatives of Islam to pursue inter-religious dialogue and cooperation in concrete initiatives for peace-making and social cohesion in Nigeria.
“In these times of particular peril, we see that your unity and leadership can spell the difference between conflict and peace, between health and illness, between abundance and poverty, between endemic violence and respect for human dignity,” wrote Pillay. “That is why, my friends, I urge you to continue your ecumenical pilgrimage, ever seeking unity of the churches, reconciliation among religions, and peace and justice within your nation.”
