The acting head of the World Council of Churches was among three international religious leaders who were this week honoured with a Bridge Builder Award for their role in building bridges of understanding between people, communities and nations.
The award, which is given by the Jury of the 14th August Committee Norway together with The Oslo Center, was this year given to Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, acting general secretary of the WCC, along with Michael Melchior, chief rabbi and leader of The Religious Peace Initiative in Israel, and Muhammad Bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa of the World Muslim League.
Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, acting general secretary of the WCC, receiving the Building Bridges Award on Monday night. PICTURE: Screen shot.
The prize, which was announced in July, was presented as a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on Monday night.
In a statement, the jury stated that it “is time to send a clear peace message to the world by working even closer together to extinguish conflict and violence while raising the values of respect, love, and tolerance for each other that are all rooted in the three monotheistic religions”.
Sauca said at the ceremony that the WCC had formally established an office to oversee its work in inter-religious dialogue and cooperation in 1971 and that, since then, it had been a “steady and growing priority for us”.
He said the WCC was “aware that almost all the world’s steepest challenges have an international and interreligious dimension”.
“Whether we are addressing international affairs, the environment, global economic justice, the rights of women and children, racism, the needs of refugees, and, not least, the task of theological education within our churches, in all these and other aspects of our work we seek to keep today’s inter-religious realities in mind.”
Sauca said that “wherever possible”, the WCC also sought to cooperate with our partners from other religious communities as well as with its Christian partners.
“In our global situation, our work in inter-religious dialogue, cooperation and peacemaking holds the prospect of a genuine fraternity among religious communities to address conflicts but also to prevent them, to make and keep peace but also to root it in the hearts of the people.”
He said we “cannot pretend that the path of inter-religious dialogue is an easy one.”
“But this is where God calls us to go, trusting in God’s accompaniment of us, and in God’s good purposes for the whole of creation.”
Also present at the ceremony was the director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In a closing address he said the COVID-19 pandemic had “highlighted just how important it is that the global community works to promote peace and understanding”.
“The pandemic has exposed the fault lines in our world and deepened divisions,” he said. “If there’s one lesson we have learned, it’s the lesson of interconnectedness.”
