A Cloud of Witnesses: a message to the churches

7. A Step Toward the Visible Unity of the Church

7.1 The boundaries of the cloud are always expanding as God adds to our number those whom he is calling. Furthermore, new faces emerge from the cloud as different historical and cultural circumstances lead us to perceive the significance of witnesses previously unacknowledged. We invite the churches to explore together the criteria for identifying individual witnesses and groups of martyrs from specific regions, eras, or events.

7.2 This work, undertaken together, can help heal the wounds of the past as we discover in the lives of the witnesses to the faith a determination to reflect the image of Christ. To re-discover the significance and power of the cloud of witnesses and to express this in common commemoration is an important step toward the visible unity of the Church.

Download  the Message and some photos of the Symposium

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(1) The message was drafted in English and subsequently translated.
(2) The papers from the conference will be published jointly by WCC Publications
and Edizioni Qiqajon of the Monastery of Bose.
(3) The call for an ecumenical list of saints and martyrs was made by the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC, meeting in Bangalore in 1978. It arose out of work on “Witness Unto Death: Martyrdom as Ultimate Hope.” Cf. Faith and Order Commission, Minutes. Bangalore 1978, WCC, Geneva 1978 (Faith and Order Paper 93), p. 42.