“Once again, we gather as the World Council of Churches to pursue and actively seek our unity in Christ – in mind, in heart, in spirit, and in practical reality. In this reality, where division is sown daily in the human family, our task is all the more urgent,” His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said in his sermon. “The Church of Constantinople shares also the joy of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the World Council of Churches, as one of its founding members,” he continued. Patriarch Bartholomew recalled how in 1920 the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued an encyclical addressed “Unto the Churches of Christ everywhere.” This served as what the patriarch described as a “constitutional charter” for the process that led to the WCC’s foundation in 1948. The chapel of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, where the WCC has its offices, was filled for the opening prayer, which had hymns, readings, and prayers in Armenian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Swahili. The WCC central committee usually meets every two years and serves as the chief governing body of the WCC between assemblies. This year’s meeting is the first since the central committee was elected at the WCC’s 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2022. Central committee members remembered in prayer the wisdom, knowledge, gifts, and commitment to unity of those active in the ecumenical movement who had died since the previous central committee meeting in 2022. | 
