At the Fiftieth Year of the MECC Founding
The WCC Secretary General Reverend Professor Dr. Jerry Pillay Visits Lebanon
Details of the First Day of the Visit
On the occasion of the Fiftieth Year of the Founding of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), the Secretary General of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Reverend Professor Dr. Jerry Pillay visits Lebanon, between 19 and 22 March 2024. He will meet with Spiritual Leaders and pray with the MECC Member Churches, aiming at strengthening the Ecumenical spirit and stressing on the brotherhood and love relations that bridge distances between all believers.
On the first day of his tour in Lebanon, Reverend Professor Dr. Pillay was accompanied by Mrs. Carla Khijoyan, the WCC Programme Executive for the Middle East, a delegation from the Armenian Orthodox Catholicosate of Cilicia, which included Father Hrant, the Ecumenical Officer at the Catholicosate and WCC Central Committee Member, and Father Dajad, Chancellor of the Catholicosate and Director of “Birds’ Nest” orphanage in the Lebanese region of Byblos, as well as Mrs. Seta Hadeshian, the MECC Associate Secretary General, and an MECC delegation.
Reverend Professor Dr. Pillay begun the tour in a visit to the “Birds’ Nest” Museum in Byblos, which was founded by His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Holy See of Cilicia, WCC President for the Orthodox Family, and MECC Honorary President. At the museum, Reverend Professor Dr. Pillay was informed, and in details, about the museum’s most prominent parts that embody the history of the Armenian genocide that occurred in 1915 and the stories of thousands of orphan children who were uprooted as a result of this genocide and faced massacres and displacement. (Photos)
Afterwards, the WCC Secretary General Reverend Professor Dr. Jerry Pillay went to the Seminary of the Armenian Orthodox Catholicosate of Cilicia and the Monastery of Saint Mary in Bikfaya, where he was received by Father Baruyr Shernezian, Dean of the Seminary, Father Kevork, the Dean’s Assistant, and Father Shnork, the Responsible of the Monastery. Reverend Professor Dr. Pillay visited the Monastery’s Church and the different parts of the Seminary, where he learned about its work and the lessons it offers. In this context, Dr. Pillay emphasized the importance of engaging people to learn and study through various ways, and offered the Seminary’s library two of the WCC publications. (Photos)
Then, Reverend Professor Dr. Pillay went to the Armenian Orthodox Catholicosate of Cilicia, where he met with His Holiness Catholicos Aram I in a private gathering in which they discussed many Ecumenical issues in addition to the most important challenges surrounding the Ecumenical work. They also stressed the importance of strengthening Ecumenical relations between Churches and the necessity of praying and working together for peace and preserving human dignity in the Middle East and the world. Following the meeting, Dr. Pillay raised his Prayers in the Catholicosate’s Church as well as in the Martyrs’ Memorial Monument of the Armenian Genocide (1915). (Photos)
At the end of the first day of the WCC Secretary General Reverend Professor Dr. Jerry Pillay’s visit to Lebanon, the Middle East Council of Churches, held, with the blessing and presence of His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, an Ecumenical gathering that started with opening remarks by Father Hrant, the Ecumenical Officer at the Catholicosate and WCC Central Committee Member. The gathering included a Keynote address delivered by His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, as well as two speeches addressed by Professor Dr. Pillay and the MECC Secretary General Professor Dr. Michel Abs, in addition to a session for questions from the participants. Noting that this gathering was hosted by the Armenian Orthodox Catholicosate of Cilicia in Antelias. (Photos)