The World Council of Churches Assembly in Canberra, Australia was my first major experience as an Orthodox delegate. I have written about what it was like in several other places, so in this briefer article I would just like to give my own answer to a question that many are asking: Should the Orthodox be taking part in ecumenical groups and activities? My answer is yes. Partly it is because some of the people most admired in the Orthodox Church worldwide have been willing to give time and effort to the ecumenical movement, and I trust their judgment. But now my own experience further convinces me that we should be making the effort.

The time in Canberra showed me that we have a great chance at ecumenical events to witness to people who may not know a lot about Orthodoxy but are, after all, fellow Christians. The people I met were clearly interested. in knowing more about the Orthodox faith and wanted to talk about our reasons for believing and practicing as we do. It is true that we may not be able to convert them en masse, but is that really the point? Our job is to be faithful and to set the Orthodox faith before others in the best and most exemplary way we can. I cannot think of a bigger or better forum for doing that than an ecumenical gathering (always assuming, of course, that we are up to such an immense spiritual task!)

An Orthodox said to me after Canberra, "But why should we want to be in a group where it's almost expected that people will compromise the apostolic faith?" I am not sure that's really an expectation, but even if it is I would say that we Orthodox are there for the express purpose of confounding such expectations. We are there to manifest a vibrant, joyous faith that does not compromise its own basic teachings. We are there to show the Orthodox Church in all her richness and beauty, in all her openess that is afraid of nothing, and can meet any intellectual or theological challenge.

The need to do this was very evident at Canberra, where some people knew so little about us and were in some cases rather hostile. There were feminists who seemed to assume that they had nothing to say to the Orthodox women; there were those who obviously thought our Church benighted and outdated in her teachings; there were those who thought the Orthodox (from personal experience?) overbearing and rude. With all these people, as well as with those who were more well-disposed toward us, we had excellent opportunities for conversation, and true witness. How will we ever dispel people's wrong ideas about Orthodoxy if we do not encounter them? I believe that so long as we are united and nonjudgmental in our witness, we can have a great impact in these gatherings.

But to achieve that unity of witness- as always the big problem is that it is something we Orthodox have not yet achieved. In all the rather virulent anti-ecumenical writings lately in Orthodox publications, I have seen strangely little mention of an event in Canberra, directly affecting the Orthodox and the whole question of our internal unity. One evening in Canberra all the Orthodox came together for a meeting at which His Holiness Pope Shanouda announced that all the necessary theological work had been done to restore communion between the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox. (It is noteworthy that the World Council of Churches sponsored the meetings during which this work took place)

Such a momentous event (particularly to people like me, perhaps, who came from an Oriental Orthodox church into the OCA), challenges us to make our own unity a practical reality. No matter how little we may think of the World Council of Churches, it enabled us to do something that we had not done among ourselves for centuries. The whole Assembly at Canberra heard about Pope Shanouda's announcement; and will no doubt be looking to see what we do with it in the years before the next Assembly

Maybe, rather than point fingers at the "heretics" in the WCC, we need to put ourselves to the difficult and long-overdue task of achieving unity as we publicly announced we would be doing. Maybe it is time to work at a united Orthodox witness that could have an incredible impact at the next Assembly and at other ecumenical meetings. Maybe we must humbly acknowledge that the WCC really has given us something - a chance to live up to our own teachings about the unity of the Church. We have accepted a gift from the WCC; now we owe its members the chance to see that we will use the gift to restore our unity and show ourselves to be what we say we are. I, for one, would like to see us put our energies into the arduous work it will take to achieve all that. Far from being absent from the next WCC Assembly, I would like us to go there as a united Church that is living up to every single teaching that form the basis of our doctrine and faith

* Valerie was also a delegate to the Damascus 1996 and Istanbul 1997 Consultations