A Brief History of Ecumenical Movement

Introduction

Mostly, the majority is Theravada Buddhist in Myanmar, that started undergoing a

democratic transition from 2011 onwards, has suffered serious violent and non-violent
interreligious conflicts in the past eight years. The conflicts within Christianity is one of
them. In fact, there is ecumenical movements in Myanmar as well. However, the tension
between Chris is still on the highest mountain. The sense of unity cannot be tasted yet. In
fact, the ecumenical movement, so Christians believe, provides an example of the working of
the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women of every communion, of every nation, and
of every race to bring into being a united and effectively witnessing world Christian
fellowship. In this sense the ecumenical movement comprehends far more than all its
organized expressions and the multiplying instances of church union. It stretches beyond
Protestantism and embraces those with the Orthodox, Catholic, and ancient Eastern Churches.
The growing world fellowship, the increasing instruments for unity – these have sprung
directly from the missionary enterprise of the past two hundred years.

I. Definition of Ecumenism

The term ecumenism has been dominantly popular in the field of theological
discussion in the twenty first century. The word “ecumenical” comes from the Greek word
oikoumene which is used in the New Testament to mean the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1), or,
the whole world (Mtt. 24:14). The word is now used to designate a modern Christian
movement concerned with the unity and renewal of the church and its relationship to God’s
reconciling and renewing mission throughout creation. The World Council of Churches, in its
meeting at Rolle, defined it “to describe anything that relates to the whole task of the whole
church to bring the gospel to the whole world.1

Ecumenism is a popular word that conveys a continued activity, vision,

transformation and progress. The members share the same concerns a common ideology in
order to bring about understanding and change, they will commit, devote and implement their
ideas and plans even at the cost of sacrifices. And it organizes and conveys its vision, belief
system and mode of its conviction and carries out its programs with a singular purpose to
succeed.2 The responsibility of the ecumenism naturally advocates God’s unity out of our
division for a greater purpose of continually to provide the whole people of God. Therefore,
1
F. Hrangkhuma, “Introduction to Church History” (Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 1996), 267.
ecumenical movement is a calling for doing organic unity with one another between Christian
denominations and other living faiths.

II. Brief History of Ecumenical Movement

2.1 The Birth of Ecumenical Movement

By the middle of the first century, the Roman World was becoming aware of a new
community as Christian. This name was attacked to them because at the relationship to do
one Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian professed to be one people. There is no “divisions of
class and race, Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, master and slave.

To church until the time of Constantine that unity had been in the main a unity of
faith, worship, and inner spirit. After Constantine there was new emphasis on the church as
organization. When the relationship between church and state had become close, the civil and
ecclesiastical organizations influenced each other. It might have been expected that the
Church, living in such close amity with the Empire, would find the natural culmination of its
organization in one single head, who would play in the Church the same role as that played in
the State by the Emperor.3 In the early church they recognized differences of degree of
separation from the church. On one point, “orthodox,” and “heretics” were fully agreed: the
church, to be the church of Jesus Christ, must be one and must be world-wide. Basil the Great
affirmed that “our faith is not one thing of Seleucia, another of Constantinople, another of
Zwla, another of Lampsacus, and another of Rome but one and the same everywhere. Hence,
most of the familiar methods of the contemporary ecumenical movement were in operation in
those early days.

In the fourth century the term oikoumene was used to describe the whole church, and
referred to those church councils recognized as authoritative by the undivided church. 4 But
the final division of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054 created the
ecumenical problem for all churches, which, up to that point, had understood the church as
one.5

2
O.L. Snaitang, “A History of Ecumenical Movement: An Introduction” (Bangalore:
BTESSC/SATHRI, 2010), 10.
3
Ruth Rouse and Stephen C. Neil, eds., “A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948” (Geneva:
WCC Publication, 1993), 9.
4
“Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions”, edited by A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Baker Books, 2000), 300.
5
“Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions”, 300.
 The protestant Reformation exacerbated the problem. The sixteenth century saw
massive fragmentation of the Body of Christ in the West, leaving groups ranging from
Roman Catholic to Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, and various Anabaptist communities. 6 In
the 17th and 18th centuries, on the contrary, under the influence of “Spiritualism” men became
accustomed to speak of the three “parts” of the divided church which stood over against one
another. The idea of the church was pluralized into that of churches. The restoration of the
unity of the Church was no longer regarded as the task of the Word of God alone. And so
attempts were made by way of agreement, discussion, formulas, and tradition of alternatively
through the manifestations of Christian life, individual Christian personality and Christian life
in community.7

The 19th century was the age of Christian geographical expansion carried out mainly
by voluntary societies. In the 19th century, most the western countries became into
evangelical enlightenment and they made mission in different colonies. The groups of
mission arisen such as the Baptist Missionary Society, the London Missionary society, the
Church Missionary Society, Non-denominational organizations, the Wesleyan Methodist
Missionary Society, etc. At that time, the Unites States also began largely through the
missionary enthusiasm of two theological students Samuel J. Mills and Adoniram Judson. By
their stroke, in 1812, American Broad of Commissioners for Foreign Missions under the
guidance of Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had been organized. 8 With the
driving force of mission enlightenment, the missionaries reached to India, China, Japan, and
the countries of Africa and Latin America.

After 1910 onward the conferences of World Missionary are held occasionally.
International Missionary Council was one of the major evidences of the Ecumenical
Movement and its great landmark; Edinburgh, 1910, Jerusalem, 1928, Madras, 1938, and,
1947 were familiar with the world. The World Missionary Conference in 1910, Edinburgh
was common regarded as the mark of ecumenical movement. It was organized for Protestant
missionary societies working among non-Christians. It unites the heart and the soul of the
Christian from different parts of the world. The title of this conference was, “The world
Mission Conference to consider missionary problems in relation to the non-Christians

6
Ibid., 300.
7
Rouse and Neil, “A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948”, 119.
8
William Richey Hogg, “Ecumenical Foundations” (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1952),
12.
world.”9 From Edinburgh sprang a new willingness to respect and recognize wide differences
and at the same time to work together as Christians. Edinburgh established three principles of
fundamental importance for the future of ecumenical organization. Firstly, Edinburgh
established the principle of bringing together officially appointed delegated, responsible to
their boards. Before that the organizations of different parts in the world had been officially-
appointed only as an expedient to limit attendance. The Shanghai and the two Madras
Conferences enlisted as official delegates although they were comparatively limited
gatherings. But, the conference of Edinburgh fixed the principle of officially designated
delegates for world Christian gatherings. Secondly, Edinburgh instituted the principle of
broad, denominational inclusiveness. Finally, Edinburgh launched international, cooperative
Christian endeavor on essential tasks regardless of theological differences, geographical
distances, and races.10

2.2 Other Roads to Ecumenical Movement

The first thrusts for ecumenical movement are the youth pioneer organization such as
Y.M.C.A and the World Student Christian Federations. The second source for ecumenism
was the concern for Christian service and ethical action. Both physical and mental destruction
in the World War I made people felt sorrow, repentance and stimulated to evaluate. The third
concern for ecumenism was the field of Christian doctrine.11

The World Council of Churches was constituted at the first assembly (Amsterdam) on
23rd August 1948. It became the most visible international expression of varied streams of
ecumenical live in the 20th century. The World Council of Churches (WCC) was inaugurated
as a fellowship of churches with the purpose of calling each other to the goal of visible unity.
Especially the two organizations, Faith and Order and Life and Work movement were most
responsibility for the existence of WCC. Faith and Order movement was also one of them. It
has been a major expression of ecumenism since its first world conference in 1972. The faith
and order focus on spiritual unity of the churches. The purpose of this movement is to
proclaim the oneness of the Church of Jesus Christ, to call the churches to the goal of visible

9
Samuel McCrea Cavert, “On the Road to Christian Unity: An Appraisal of the Ecumenical
Movement” (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961), 16.
10
William Richey Hogg, “A History of International Missionary Council and its Nineteenth Century
Background” (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1952), 139-140.
11
“The Westminster Dictionary of Church History”, ed., Jerald C. Brauer (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1971), s.v. “Ecumenical Movement”.
unity in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship, expressed in worship and in common life in
Christ, in order that the world may believe.12

Life and Work were another road direction to the ecumenical movement. The first
Conference on Life and Work, held in Stockholm in 1925, was widely representative—over
600 delegates from 37 countries attended and discussed the church's responsibility in such
areas as international relations, education, economics, and industry. A second Conference on
Life and Work, held in Oxford in 1937, drew delegates from 40 countries and 120
denominations who discussed church and state, church and community, and the church and
its function in society, while small groups dealt with education, the economic order, and the
world of nations.13

III. Ecumenical Movement in Asia and Myanmar

The officially know the first ecumenical movement in Asia was manifested Young
Men Christian Association (YMCA). Through the efforts of Luther D. Wishard the first
student YMCA outside America was begun in 1884. 14 His association with Harlan P. Beach
resulted in one of the first two Associations in China. From 1888 to 1898 he traveled through
the lands of the younger churches beginning new Associations and laying foundations for
national Student Movements that were later to become members of the World’s Student
Christian Federation.15 Participation at the 1910 world missionary conference in Edinburgh
showed that the contributions of Asian participants in ecumenism. At that conference, there
were 17 delegates from the younger churches in Asia. Among the delegates, V. S. Azariah
and Cheng Ching Yi, spoke out their voice and it made significant impact. Azaraiah insisted
that Asia church could decide what kind of ecumenical relationship they should have. 16 In
1957, the East Asia Christian Conference (EACC) was inaugurated in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. The EACC was changed into its name as the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA)
in 1973 and its office was situated in Hong Kong. The CCA has strived for the promotion and
strengthening of the unity of the church in Asia, the development and promotion of
relationships with people of other faiths in Asia, and the protection of human dignity and the
promotion of caring for the creation.

12
Cavert, “On the Road to Christian Unity: An Appraisal of the Ecumenical Movement”, 344.
13
Robert Brown, "Ecumenical Movement" In Encyclopedia of Religion, Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 4. 2nd
ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 2683.
14
Hogg, “A History of International Missionary Council and its Nineteenth Century Background”, 89.
15
Ibid., 89.
16
Ninan Koshy, “A History of the Ecumenical Movement in Asia”, Vol.2 ( Hong Kong :World Student
Christian Federation, 2004), 23.
 The birth history of Christianity in Myanmar will not be discussed here. Myanmar
Council of Churches was organized in 1914 in order to attempt for inter-church unity and it is
oriented than WCC. The leadership task of MCC from its founding year (1914) to 1964 for
fifty years was undertaken mainly by the foreign Christian missionaries and leaders, and from
the end of 1964 that the national Christian leaders began to take responsibilities for the
leadership. There are 13 member churches from different church denominations in MCC,
which have voting rights. There are nine cooperating bodies and twenty one regional councils
which have no voting rights. The main purpose of the MCC is for unity of the churches in
Myanmar through:

- mutual fellowship and mutual understanding

- mutual acceptance and recognition in faith and practices of different churches
- coordination and cooperation in common concerns of the churches, and
- Persistent endeavour towards organic unity of the churches.17
Conclusion
Christian mission reached in Myanmar at least for two hundred years. The history of
Ecumenism started since the 19th century as well. However, the result of ecumenism is still
under covered. Especially, in Myanmar, ecumenical spirit is very weak yet. Most Christian
churches and denominations compete in their developments rather than unity. In fact, it will
be the best to focus the unity and well-being of the churches. This history show what the
purpose of ecumenism is and what the churches need to do as well. The continuing works of
ecumenism is on the shoulders of the present theologians. The post-modern ecumenism
should be learned the weak points and strong points from the past history in order to construct
the unity among the churches.

17
“Aim a Purpose,” http://mcc-mm.org/aim-a-purpose, (accessed February 2, 2019).