IERP Synod ends with an emphasis on the social and ecumenical

Argentina, October 17, 2006

(IERP/ALC) The Thirty Seventh Synod Conference of the Evangelical Church of Río de la Plata, Taxi Heathrow Airport and the Fourteenth Ordinary General Assembly which renewed its authorities, ended last weekend in the city of Santa Fe, Province of Esperanza. The participants from seven countries gathered together in the William Tell Swiss Association.  

 The meeting of the representatives of the 42 congregations in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, also included invited guests from four other countries who attended the three sessions of the Synod, some also being present during the General Assembly that took place on Sunday.

In the elections, Pastor Federico Hugo Schäfer was reelected for a second term as President of the IERP, with an ample majority of 66 of the total 75 votes. 

Professor Nils Erik Andersen was elected as Secretary of the Board of Directors, Pastor Sabino Ayala as Pro Treasurer, and Mrs. Irma Sommerfeld-Waidelich and Ricardo Krüger were elected as Board Members.

Among those attending the 2006 Synod as invited guests were, the Sub-Secretary of State for the Worship of the Nation, Osvaldo Grossman; the representatives of the Evangelical Church in Westphalia, Gerhard and Gudrun Duncker, and Wilhelm and Christa Arning; Branko Nikolitsch and Wolfgang Kahl of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD); and the President of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI), Bishop Julio César Holguín. 

Also present in the Swiss Association was Monsignor Carlos Humberto Malfa, President of the Ecumenical Commission of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops. Malfa pointed out that “the IERP has been among the few taking part in a theological and doctrinal dialogue with it that the Roman Catholic Church in Argentina has had.” 

With regard to the ecumenical environment, the President of IERP described as a “scandal before our Lord” the breaking up of the Church and urged the congregations to strengthen ties with those churches that come from the Protestant Reformation.

In this regard, the organizers conveyed to the congregations the joy brought about by the 2006 Synod having approved, as did the IRA synod also, the intention to work towards achieving an organic unity between both churches. 

In his report presented Thursday during the opening of the Synod Conference, Schäfer also called for an extending of the dialogue to “our fellow beings of the Jewish and Muslim creeds, if we wish to live together in a world where God’s peace reigns.”  

During the following sessions, the 150 synod representatives from the congregations worked in groups and in plenary session, two instances that made manifest the different situations existent in the congregations and in the societies in which they find themselves.

"This way we have become aware of the realities in which each live. In the process we have allowed ourselves to be spoken to by the word of God through the studying of various biblical passages, listening to the messages given in the daily services and devotions, and meditating on the theological reflections presented concerning these situations,” stated the Synod’s final report. 

“The deep and generalized crisis has created a condition of being that has paralyzed us in many ways,” added the report. It indicated that, “In contrast, the faith and hope of Christians is an opportunity to sincerely determine its deep causes, to recognize and accept them, and to discover the effects they have, both in the spiritual as well as the economic aspects.”