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This year’s meeting was organised was cooperation with the National Council of Churches in Denmark and was held in conjunction with the meeting of the ecumenical officers of the Conference of European Churches member churches.
The theme of the gathering was "Towards a Christian Citizenship in Europe,” inspired by the Danish EU presidency’s theme on security in Europe and the European Neighborhood Programme. Participants explored how churches can contribute to shaping citizenship in contemporary Europe.
Nyborg, a city of historical significance for the Reformation in Denmark, was the birthplace of the Conference of European Churches’ peace-building efforts in 1959.
The goal of the meeting was also to strengthen cooperation among European churches, give new momentum to their mission in response to modern challenges, and promote the understanding and implementation of Christian citizenship based on the principles of justice, freedom, and dignity.
The gathering also reflected on Christian citizenship in times of change, highlighting the responsibility of churches to engage with public life amid shifting politics, renewed security concerns, and the ongoing call to peace across the continent.
The meeting opened with a prayer and words of welcome from Rev. Frank-Dieter Fischbach, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches.
“Our churches are confronted with growing secularisation and shrinking public space for religion,” he said. “In this context, Christian citizenship means standing for human rights and freedom of religion or belief, developing a public theology that makes the voice of the churches heard, and contributing to European integration as a peace project.”
Katerina Pekridou, programme officer for Theology and Studies at the Conference of European Churches, said that Christian citizenship is about more than national belonging.
“It is about being rooted in Christ while taking responsibility for the common good,” she said. “In our time of polarisation and shifting values, churches are called to a deepened process of theological and moral discernment, resist the misuse of religion for political ends, and translate the Gospel into action that promotes justice, peace, and human dignity.”
Discussions focused on Christian identity and civic responsibility, nationalism and unity, the misuse of religion in politics, and the moral questions raised by militarisation and changing defence policies.
The meeting concluded with a guided discussion on the road ahead. Participants, including Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, mapped initiatives already underway across member churches and councils and identified areas for joint work in advocacy, dialogue, and theological reflection.
Prove also represented the WCC in his capacity as the WCC representative on the Conference of European Churches Advisory Group for the Pathways to Peace initiative, which focuses on promoting justice, reconciliation, and peace following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Reflecting on the meeting in Nyborg, Prove highlighted the important role of Europe and European institutions at a time of converging global crises and threats to multilateral cooperation and a rules-based international order. He especially underlined the role and calling of European churches to be voices for principled multilateralism in the regional context of Europe, against the background especially of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“In this centenary year of the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work, held in Stockholm in 1925, we can draw inspiration from the ecumenical appeal for international cooperation and mutual accountability under international law expressed by the churches already then”, he said.
Prove noted that the Conference of European Churches and the World Council of Churches have different but important complementary roles and capacities in this regard. “The World Council of Churches counts on a functional, effective, and revitalised Conference of European Churches to be a voice for the churches in the European institutions at this crucial time,” he stressed.
“If there is a silver lining of any sort to this current difficult and challenging geopolitical moment, it is perhaps that Europe has been shaken free, at least to some extent, of its complacency and of its dependency upon, in particular the United States,” Prove remarked. “At the same time, we have to lament the terrible impact of this shift on resource allocations for social welfare at the national level, and on development cooperation and peacebuilding at the international level.”
Prove also reflected on the discussions in Nyborg on the concepts of citizenship, patriotism, nationalism, and extreme nationalism. “in my view, these are points on a continuum – on a slippery slope in fact – which calls for deeper theological reflection on where the good stops and the bad begins on that continuum“.
“Among other things”, Prove reported “the conference acknowledged that the concept of “Christian citizenship” can be understood as leaning into Christian nationalism.” Instead, he proposed, we should consider what constitutes good and responsible citizenship in Europe and the Christian contribution to that.
"The reality is that we have very different histories and perspectives across the Christian traditions with regard to church-state relations and the appropriate positioning of Christian communities vis-à-vis governmental authority and state structures,” he said.
Prove emphasized the role of the church as acounter-cultural force. “I expressed the view that the churches are always called to a certain critical distance from the prevailing current in politics and society, and to adopt a counter-cultural position where our faith and Christian ethical positions require it.”
