The President of the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (SPC), Pastor Thomas Wipf of Bern, a member of the three-member Presidium of the CPCE (Community of Protestant Churches in Europe), gives his reflection on the work within the CPCE in this interview.
Pastor Wipf explains: “Europe needs our common witness and our common service. We would be unfaithful to our task as churches if we stopped at a merely voluntary declaration of church fellowship.”Church President Wipf also tells of his expectations from the next General Assembly, which is taking place in Budapest from 12-18 September under the slogan ‘Strengthening Community – The Profile of Protestantism in Europe’.
Among his expectations he listed: “An internal and external strengthening of the CPCE”. An “institutional and legal strengthening of the CPCE is necessarily bound up” with the common witness and common service of the Protestant churches in Europe.
“We should give ourselves the possibility of bringing together the diversity of Protestant voices, working out common positions and then also making binding resolutions.”
The full interview with Pastor Wipf is shown below:
Herr Wipf, you have belonged to the CPCE Presidium since the last General Assembly and since then you have guided the fortunes of this alliance of Protestant churches. What are your personal conclusions about it?
Thomas Wipf: Today the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe is a reality for Protestantism. It provides stimuli for theological and ecclesiological reflection on a further growing together of the Protestant churches in the context of Europe and world-wide. Today this community is also an ecumenical reality. The CPCE is a partner in ecumenical conversations and thus can introduces its specifically Reformation understanding of church unity.
Already prior to the last General Assembly in Belfast in 2001 further Protestant churches in Europe signed the Leuenberg Agreement, for example the Methodist churches of Europe and the Lutheran Churches of Denmark and Norway. The Evangelical Church in the Principality of Liechtenstein signed the Agreement this spring as our 105th and latest member. Another sign of the ongoing and not just Eurocentric significance of the Leuenberg Church Fellowship model of unity for is also evident from the fact than the Reformed and Lutheran churches in the Near East have signed the so-called Amman Declaration modelled on the Leuenberg Agreement.Beyond doubt the Leuenberg Agreement also provides stimuli for the Protestant world alliances – the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Lutheran World Federation - and for their closer collaboration.
