The fiftieth year of the founding of the Middle East Council of Churches
Catholic Information Center
The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) Dr. Michel E. Abs delivered this speech at the press conference held by the Catholic Media Center in Lebanon, in partnership with MECC, on Tuesday 9 January 2024, at the Center’s headquarters in Beirut. During the conference, the “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” 2024 was launched, as well as the program for the MECC Jubilee Year was presented, and the Ecumenical musical event “Beirut 2023” was announced.
Dr. Michel E. Abs
Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)
Your Eminences, Holy Fathers, honorable presence
Today we begin the second half-century of the life of the Middle East Council of Churches, this institution that formed lieu of togetherness and interaction between the churches of the cradle of Christianity, where happened the annunciation of the coming of the Lord, the birth, the preaching, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, completing His message of salvation to humankind.
The MECC has gone through many stages, and its roots go back to the year 1929, when it was an institution then called the Christian Council for the Near East. It gradually transformed into the Near East Council of Churches (NECC) in 1964, then the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) in 1974, where it took its current constitutional and organizational shape and remained as such with some modifications in the organizational structure, but nothing has changed in essence.
The MECC stems from the ecumenical faith and thought, where there is mutual recognition between the church(es) regarding distinct theological trends and liturgy, and where there is mutual acceptance, growing partnership, deepening interaction, and common fateful aspirations.
Today the MECC consists of four church families: Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical and Catholic. It has offices in several countries in the region and implements programs in the fields of theology, religious education and ecumenical relations, in the field of communication, media and advocacy, in the field of diakonia and social service, and in the field of dialogue and social cohesion and the rehabilitation of human dignity and social capital.
The MECC is present to serve in any place where it finds a place to support the heavy laden and burdened. It is also active in various innovative fields that fill basic gaps in the life of society and the church, jointly or individually, at the institutional level as well as at the pastoral and community level.
In the fiftieth year of its founding, the MECC is focusing on making this occasion a station for contemplation, evaluation and dialogue for a better future for ecumenical, or joint Christian work, in the service of the unity of Christians, the unity of society, and the progress of both, because the MECC’s view, emanating from the view of the Church, is that Christians form an essential part of the social fabric of their countries, and what is harmful to their societies is harmful to them, and what is beneficial to their societies is beneficial to them.
During the meeting in which it approved the fiftieth jubilee year, the MECC’s Executive Committee stressed that the activities should be faith-based, intellectual, and cultural, with a strategic dimension and a renewed vision for the future of Christians and the region. This will be obvious in the presentation of the general framework of the fiftieth-year program.
The Jubilee Year will begin in January 2024, with the Week of Prayer for Unity, and will end in January 2025, with the beginning of the 1700th year of the Council of Nicaea.
Also, this year will be under verse 2:1 of the Acts of the Apostles, “And when the day of Pentecost came, they were all gathered together in one place.” The Council’s Communication Department, in coordination with a number of team members, have developed a logo that incorporates the year of Pentecost with the Council's logo known to everyone, to which is added the verse - motto and four stars after the four families that make up the Council.
The MECC team divided the activities into four sections, as follows:
1- Prayers and spiritual chanting meetings
2- Lectures and seminars
3- Publishing information materials
4- Publications
The first section includes the Week of Prayer for Unity, and we chose to launch the activities of the fiftieth year during this week. In this context the MECC made a partnership in the Ecumenical Musical Event (EME), about which those who were at the origin of the project will talk later. This section also includes ecumenical prayer evenings in more than one country in the Middle East. We will also hold an evening of Christian, Islamic, and popular songs around the end of the current year. It goes without saying how much these ecumenical and mixed evenings play an effective role in terms of cohesion between people and raising common values that are based on the worship of the one Lord, the Creator of this universe and the Savior of creation.
The second section includes three basic topics within which seminars and lectures will be held, which around the themes of Christian presence and witness, ecumenical dialogue, existential questions, and future vision and aspirations. In this context, we must mention that the annual meeting of the REOs, i.e. the General Secretaries of the Church Councils worldwide, coordinated by the World Council of Churches, will be held in Lebanon at the end of March, and attendees are invited to participate in a symposium on ecumenical dialogue in the Middle East. We have also prepared a program of visits for participating members to church leaders residing in Lebanon. In addition, lecturers and forums will address various topics under this second section in programmed activities.
As for the third section, which is related to the MECC’s media and audio-visual production. It will include documentary tapes covering the various activities of the Council and its various historical stages, despite the difficulty of transferring old tapes into documents that can be read using modern software, and this is a work for which Télé Lumière-Noursat has volunteered to do. We extend to them our thanks as well as to those in charge of it. Télé Lumière-Noursat will also broadcast a joint program we called “Ecumenicals,” (Maskouniyat in Arabic) which deals with the history and development of the ecumenical movement in the region and the role of the Middle East Council of Churches in this path.
As for the fourth section, it includes two basic activities. The first is the Fifty Years Album, which will present data on the Council’s progress during the past fifty years, with pictures and documents, about general assemblies and executive committees, decisions and statements, and other information that document the first half of the first hundred years of the MECC which is required to continue its journey for many decades that will follow in order to carry out the enormous tasks entrusted to it by the visionary founders, as well as the modern leaders who renewed the vision and aspirations.
The second activity in this section is a booklet introducing the Middle East Council of Churches, which is a document about the history of the Council, its structure, its activities, and a lot of data that explains to the public and those interested what the Council is as an institution and as a society.
This is in brief the general framework within which the “events” of the fiftieth year of the Council’s life will take place. It is worth mentioning that MECC work will continue Business As Usual in the various existing departments, and the departments that we will create, because the activities of the Jubilee Year will be automatically integrated within the normal work of the institution, which is currently preparing to launch new programs and projects, as we find international institutions, ecumenical as well as secular, more and more referring to us demanding partnership in work and projects, in the light of the credibility that the MECC enjoys through the efforts of its team that works tirelessly, as well as under the auspices of its leaders who support and supervise this work.
May the Lord grant us all success in serving His creation in His name.