Membership

There have been three changes in membership since the last AGM:

• From the Armenian Apostolic Church, Dr Artin Jebejian has replaced Fr Avetis Hambardzumyan.
• From the Greek Orthodox Church, Dr Lydia Gore-Jones has replaced Fr Anastasios Bozikis.
• Independent member and Co-Convenor Rev. Associate Professor Doru Costache has resigned due to other work pressures and has been warmly thanked for his many years of valuable service.

The matter of a replacement Co-Convenor has been left open at this stage to allow time for the best way forward to be determined.

Activities

1. TRC’s e-book, published at the end of 2020 on the NSWEC website, A Celebration of Ut unum sint: The 25th Anniversary (a collection of reflections on ecumenism from thirty-four clerical and lay people across the spectrum edited by Doru Costache and Diane Speed), generated TRC’s first Zoom online conference on Saturday, 9 October 2021, from 10am to 12.30pm. This entailed two panels addressing the general theme “What Does It Mean to Be Ecumenical?” The first panel saw Rev. Myung Hwa Park, Fr Claude Mostowik msc, and Mr Doug Hewitt AM reflect on the implications of the TRC e-book. The second panel saw Rev. Dr Josephine Inkpin, Rev. Dr Michael Jensen, and Ms Brooke Prentis explore the challenge of increasing polarization in our society and the potential role of the ecumenical movement in addressing this. Members of the NSWEC Executive and TRC provided the framing materials, including a short initial address on the history of the ecumenical movement form the retiring NSWEC President, Rev. Dr Raymond Williamson. It seemed to be generally agreed that the conference had been a success in that it had proceeded reasonable smoothly and provided an interesting and useful morning’s engagement.
2. TRC has therefore decided to mount another such Zoom conference a year later. This has the overall theme “Being Christians Together” and is to take place on Saturday, 8 October 2022, from 10am to 12.30pm. Again, the main constituents will be two panels, this time preceded by a short address from current NSWEC President, Rev. Myung Hwa Park. The first panel, addressing the sub-theme “Being Christians in Contemporary Australia”, will see about five theological students reflect on what they think, based on their own experience, brings Christians together and what keeps them apart. The second panel, addressing the sub-theme “Walking Together in Urban and Regional Australia”, will see three ordained people share their experiences and views of how Christians from different backgrounds and in different settings can walk and work together.

When you read this, PLEASE SAVE THE DATE! Arrangements and participants are being finalized at the4 time of writing, and A FLIER WITH REGISTRATION directions is expected to be available at the AGM and emailed at the same time to NSWEC members and others. There is no registration fee, but the Zoom invitation will be sent to those who register.

3. There has also been a significant development with respect to the e-book itself. The papers presented at the 2021 conference were significant reflections on ecumenism in the year following publication of the e-book, and it was decided that they should be added into a second edition of it. Four of the presenters were able to provide their papers for this purpose: Rev. Myung Hwa Park, Fr Claude Mostowik, Mr Doug Hewitt AM, and Rev. Dr Josephine Inkpin. Accordingly, their papers now appear as “Additional Reflections” in the second edition, which includes also a “Preface to the Second Edition and some updates of the authors’ short biograhies.

The second edition was launched at the NSWEC Annual Dinner at the Assyrian Church of the East Cathedral Hall on 5 June 2022 and is available for free download on the NSWEC website, under Resources.

One further addition to the second edition has a further significance of more general interest. After considerable discussion, TRC recommended that NSWEC should acquire the facility of including an ISBN number on its monograph publications, beginning with the second edition of A Celebration of Ut unum sint: The 25th Anniversary. Readers will thus find an ISBN number on the bibliographical page of the e-book but, beyond this, it has been decided that all monographs published by NSWEC henceforth should also bear an ISBN number. Having the number means that a publication may be noticed by bibliographers anywhere and stand a much better chance of public recognition, which can only be to the benefit of NSWEC and the shared concerns of its member churches.

TRC hopes that this initiative will encourage others within the NSWEC family to consider producing new monographs of their own and, perhaps, undertaking revised editions of existing monographs.

(Professor Emerita) Diane Speed

Co-Convenor