The Patriarch of Ethiopia, Abune Paulos, and former ephorus (bishop) to the largest Protestant church in Indonesia, the Rev. Dr. Soritua Nababan, are both long-time advocates of the ecumenical movement. The two WCC presidents - who continuously confront the issue of religious differences and persecution in their country – believe open communication between religious groups is a key, if not only, solution to the world’s problems.
“Today we live in a troubled world,” said Paulos in an interview at the WCC Central Committee meeting in Geneva, according to a WCC report on Monday. “Our task in the ecumenical movement is not to deal only with the Christian world, but with the whole of God’s creation as we are all His creatures.”
Paulos, who heads the 40-million strong Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, has experienced first-hand religious persecution when in 1976 he was imprisoned for seven years for his faith by Ethiopia’s then-Marxist military government and subsequently spent several years in exile in the United States.
Similarly, Indonesia’s Nababan foresees greater emphasis on inter-religious dialogue in the 21st century. The reverend notes that information is many times controlled by the powerful “who publish only what they want to hear and what they want the people to know.” Nababan hopes that through the Church and the ecumenical movement the other side of the story will be told.
“I am proposing, for instance, to widen the paradigm of Christian-Muslim relationships,” said Nababan, who is vice-president of the Lutheran World Federation and member of the LWF Executive Committee, in a WCC interview. “It should not be caught up in the centuries-long paradigm of Crusade against Islamic sabil or jihad, Islamic war. It should be widened, starting from the point that the majority of Muslims live in Asia and the biggest number of Muslims living in a country is in Indonesia and the most moderate are there.”
The Indonesian ecumenical advocate hopes to strengthen the role of moderate Muslims rather than letting extremists take over and expand the understanding of Islam so that it is not simply understood in terms of oil and terror.
Although there will be obstacles and difficulties, such as in Ethiopia where a democratic government was introduced only 15 years ago, the two WCC presidents believe dialogue between religious groups can bring understanding and reconciliation in places divided by differences in beliefs.
“I appeal to all people to learn to tolerate what they disagree with, and I ask people to show patience,” concluded the Ethiopian Patriarch. “But I believe that Ethiopia is beginning to make progress and I am hopeful that differences will not prevent people from working together.”