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After four years as general secretary of the Conference of European Churches (CEC), Dr Jørgen Skov Sørensen has returned home to Denmark, filled with confidence in the future of CEC and its growing influence on European affairs. With a clear mandate to sharpen CEC’s purpose and profile fulfilled, and strategic directions for the future affirmed at last year’s general assembly in Estonia, he now continues an extraordinary ecumenical journey, a journey where the search for his own Christian identity has played a significant role.

No holidays for William Temple, Archbishop of York, early in August 1937. The ecumenical movement for the social responsibility of the churches, known as “Life and Work,” had just held its world conference in Oxford, 12-26 July, with the church struggle against emerging totalitarian states at the heart of its theme and work. Temple had drafted the final message of the conference, known for the motto “let the Church be the Church.”   

In a video book launch and discussion, the World Council of Churches (WCC) introduces “A Hundred Years of Mission Cooperation" and "Together in the Mission of God” in connection to the Centenary of the International Missionary Council, founded in 1921.

As participants in the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) gathered at Amsterdam during August 1948, the Netherlands bore witness to the violence of the Second World War. The port of Rotterdam was rising from near destruction. Many other cities, towns and villages across Europe were struggling to recover. To the east, Germany and Austria were divided into zones of occupation administered by the Allied Powers. Two months earlier, tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western occupiers of the former German capital led to the start of the Berlin Airlift. Since 1945, publications had been increasing their use of the term “Cold War”.