Topic overview:

• Editorial
• From the Council
• 50th anniversary of the Leuenberg Agreement
• From work processes
• From the Head Office
  
• New publications
• Announcements

The CPCE Council decided on 8 December 2022, after a series of preliminary negotiations, to apply for participatory status as an INGO at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In this way we get to hear the heartbeats of Europe at close quarters! The work of CPCE at the Council of Europe is to be carried out by the Conference of the Churches on the Rhine (CRC). The CRC is a regional group of the CPCE and maintains an office in Strasbourg. This enables the CPCE and its member churches to bring Protestant positions in the field of social ethical questions, European cooperation and integration, as well as the question of the position of the Christian churches in the respective European societies into the work of the Council of Europe.

On the website www.leuenberg50.org you will find information on the 50th anniversary of the Leuenberg Agreement, such as the text of the Agreement in 19 languages and information on anniversary events. Materials for the media or church services will also be posted shortly. Please also let us know about your events so that we can advertise them on the website.

Can we still speak about God at all in today's secularised and plural society? And if so, how? –  Answers to these questions are partly very different on our European continent and in the churches.

Delegates from 15 CPCE member churches and cooperation partners dealt with all these questions at a consultation in Bad Vöslau (Austria) from 1 to 3 December 2022. It was exciting to see which accents were brought in from the different contexts in Europe - from secularisation in the Netherlands, the position of the Young Theologians to the war situation in Ukraine. The delegates discussed the draft CPCE study text "Christian Speaking of God", which will be revised by an editorial group for the next General Assembly in 2024 on the basis of the intensive and fruitful discussion.

Where is the influence of Protestantism visible in European societies? What are the perspectives of Protestantism with regard to the social tasks and hopes of the coming years? Young theologians will discuss these and similar questions at the Forum Young Theology from 12 to 15 April 2023. It is organised by Evangelischer Bund Hessen, the Centre for Protestant Theology East (ZETO) and the Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE) and will take place in Sibiu in Romania. Dr Christine Schliesser from the CPCE Advisory Council for Ethical Issues will give the keynote lecture. The conference coincides with Orthodox Holy Week and thus enables the participants to have a special encounter with the Christian Orthodox tradition, which is in any case a concern of ZETO. Sibiu is not an unusual place for European church meetings: in 2007 the third European Ecumenical Assembly took place here and in 2024 the CPCE General Assembly is also to meet in this city. The Forum Young Theology itself is now being held for the third time and was last held in Vienna in spring 2022. In a digital lecture series (Digital Academy), about 25 participants have already dealt with various facets of the topic of "Protestantism and Participation". At the conference in Sibiu, practical applications for the work of young theologians (teaching, congregational leadership, liturgy, etc.) will be developed. Registrations are possible until 20 February 2023.