The World Conference of Life and Work ( sv, Stora ekumeniska mötet) was held on the initiative of

Church of Sweden The Church of Sweden ( sv, Svenska kyrkan) is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.6 million members at year end 2021, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sw ...

archbishop

Nathan Söderblom Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom (; 15 January 1866 – 12 July 1931) was a Swedish clergyman. He was the Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala between 1914 and 1931, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize. He is commemorated in the Cale ...

in Stockholm, Sweden 1925 to discuss social cooperation. Attending the meeting were most major Christian denominations, however the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and the

Pentecostal movement Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

didn't show up. Prior to the conference, Söderblom had put efforts into ecumenical discussions among churches, and peace talks during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Among these discussions was the World Alliance for Promoting Friendship among the Churches in 1919, which was the first time Christians from both sides of the war met again. Söderblom arranged the World Conference of Life and Work with hopes that it would result in an ecumenical council of churches and that "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all peoples will become more completely realized through the church of Christ". Some of the topics discussed were the church's role in God's plan for the world, economic, industrial, social and moral problems, international relations and co-operation between churches. It was intended that theological differences be kept out with the slogan "Doctrine divides, while service unites", which turned out to be hard to achieve. The conference was followed by other ecumenical activities, such as the Faith and Order Conference in

Lausanne, Switzerland Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and fac ...

in 1927, which Söderblom's friend, the Episcopal bishop Charles Brent had been instrumental in arranging. The movement out of the Faith and Order Conference and the World Conference of Life and Work later formed the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most ju ...

in 1948.

References

1920s in Stockholm 1925 conferences 1925 in Christianity 1925 in Sweden Christian ecumenism Christianity in Stockholm History of the Church of Sweden 20th-century Lutheranism {{Christianity-stub

See also

References