It is difficult to pinpoint when the search for reconciliation between the strands of the unraveled Church began. In the Middle East, the release of churches trapped in the Ottoman ‘millet’ system played a part. Certainly the uneasy conscience of many sensitive Christians over the centuries prepared the way for true metanoya, and gave access to the spiritual tools for taking up the task.
1902 the Ecumenical Patriarch, Yoachim III, Patriarch of Constan-tinople, issued an encyclical. In it he raised the issue of Christian unity and Orthodox relations with Roman Catholics and Protestants. Eighteen years later the Patriarchate issued another encyclical entitled, “Unto the Churches of Christ Everywhere.” It encouraged the spirit of reconciliation, drawing upon the scripture, “Love one another earnestly from the heart.” (I Peter 1:22) From the highest seat of Greek Orthodoxy, these expressions echo a deep and broadening Christian longing in the Middle East, an ‘ecumenism before ecumen-ism,’ to set aside the acrimony and contention between Christian brothers and sisters, and seek those things which make for peace. This readiness in the region resonated to developments within the younger churches of the West. Their international engagements through the missionary movement they had launched broadened their vision. In 1910 the International Missionary Conference in Edinburgh gave birth to three complementary movements: The International Missionary Council, Faith and Order, and Life and Work. In them the main Protestant churches declared their intention to move toward unity and reconciliation, an intention which matured in 1948 and 1961 in the formation of the World Council of Churches.
Even before 1910, Protestant missions in the Middle East had been seeking ways to relate more closely to each other. In 1924, missionaries met in Jerusalem and organized two United Missionary Councils. These laid foundations for what became the Near East Christian Council in 1956, a coordinating body supplying commonly needed services and reflecting the desire to temper self-interest with a commitment to cooperation and united witness. Eventually the ‘NECC’ brought together thirty-six Christian agencies, and involved the churches related to those agencies in full partnership.
The history of the first NECC shows missionary paternalism yielding to a more profound understanding of ecclesiology and witness. The mission agencies eventually stepped aside. In 1962 a fellowship of middle eastern Protestant churches known as the Near East Council of Churches (still NECC but with a profound difference) came into being.
Ever since the 1930s, amicable contacts between Protestant groups and the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches of the region had been cultivated. These already had a responsive chord to strike in Orthodox spirituality, but decades of exploitation, competition and tension had to be overcome. Much healing had to take place.
In 1964 these informal efforts were amplified into an intentional dialogue. By 1972 sufficient progress had been made to charge a drafting committee to bring forward a constitution and by-laws which would organize a council having full ecumenical dimensions in the region. At the end of May 1974 the Middle East Council of Churches was brought into being at its First General Assembly in Nicosia, Cyprus. But the task was not yet done. Among those issuing the landmark Pastoral Epistle of the Heads of Churches in the Middle East in 1984 stood Catholic prelates. This gave evidence to the continuing dialogue between the See of Rome and the churches from which it had been divided. From the outset Catholics had been observers of the middle eastern councilliar process, and significant individuals had become deeply involved with the council. At the Fifth General Assembly of 1990, after much dialogue and negotiating, the seven Catholic churches of the Middle East joined the council as its fourth family. This symbolically completed a square of wholeness, and made of the council a fully inclusive body.
Looking forward toward the Year 2000, there remain several small non-councilliar Protestant churches in the region with links to non-ecumenical western churches and mission agencies. Dialogue with them (and with their partners) continues.
But among the principal councilliar churches still not fully within the middle eastern ecumenical stream is the Ancient (Assyrian) Church of the East. The Sixth General Assembly, in 1994, took action to accelerate the process whereby this ancient community, representing the strongest Christian presence in war-torn Iraq, should be admitted to full membership in the MECC. The MECC Executive Committee at its Fall meeting in 1995, acted to approve the membership of this church within the Catholic family under the name ‘The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.’ The dream shall have become a reality, therefore, at the MECC’s next General Assembly.