The second meeting of the Central Committee (CC) that was elected during the 10^th Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in Busan, South Korea, took place in Trondheim – Norway 22^nd – 28^th June 2016.  Our Syriac Orthodox Church was represented by the two members for the Central Committee:

(1)    Metropolitan Matta Roham

(2)    Dr Theodora Issa

The opening prayer of the meeting that was held at Trondheim Cathedral was attended by the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess of Norway. During the duration of the meetings (i.e. 22nd – 28th June 2016), the committee members met on daily basis throughout from 9:00 – 20:00 hrs with the exception of Sunday, where the members attended Holy Masses at different churches, then attended plenary and other activities in the afternoon including a plenary on ‘Religion and Violence’ and ‘Woman’ with the presence of ‘guest speakers. The members of the Syrian Orthodox Church to the CC attended all the sessions and participated in different shapes and forms raising awareness of the atrocities against our people in their homeland, highlighting the dangers that the people in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity face, especially in Syria and Iraq. For example:

• Metropolitan Matta Roham – acted as a member of the Governance and Nomination Committee throughout the duration of the meeting
• Dr Theodora Issa – acted as a member of the Programme Committee throughout the duration of the meeting
• Metropolitan Roham and Dr Issa as members of the CC, were engaged in several interventions during plenaries, committee meetings, confessional meetings or regional meetings in relation to issues that are of great concern to our Holy Syriac Orthodox Church especially, the dire situation in the Middle East (Iraq and Syria), and the attack on H.H. in Qamishli an issue that was also raised by other members of the Central Committee (Oriental, Orthodox and other denominations even made it to the Public Issues statement). They both held several face-to-face meetings and exchanged e-mails with moderators/reporters of different committees and other WCC staff in relation to the paper ‘Religion and Violence’ and the children rights plenary in relation to the children of Iraq and Syria. They both attended the extraordinary meeting of the Oriental Orthodox family members in relation to the Executive Committee membership.

Following the sessions of this year’s CC’s meeting, it is our pleasure to report that we have additional representation of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Governing Bodies

o   In addition to her duties one of The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate Central Committee member Dr Theodora Issa who is also a member of the Education and Ecumenical Formation Commission (EEF) has been and during this 2016 Central Committee meeting elected as a member of the PCCC, which was agreed upon with the Oriental Orthodox Churches family members.