The Volos Academy's Academic Associate, Mrs Katerina Pekridou has been appointed Dialogue Secretary of the Conference of European Churches (CEC)

Aikaterini Pekridou, who has been a member of Volos Academy since 2008, has been appointed Dialogue Secretary of the Conference of European Churches (CEC). She will start working for the Brussels based ecumenical organisation from autumn 2016. CEC has about 120 member Churches from the Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, Old Catholic and Free Church traditions. Pekridou will coordinate the theological dialogue among member Churches and with the Roman Catholic dialogue partner, the Association of the Catholic Bishops' Conferences in Europe (CCEE).

Ms Pekridou studied Theology at Thessaloniki, Brookline (USA), and Göttingen (Germany). She is currently completing her PhD at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), and working as a research assistant at the Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Münster (Germany). In the past she worked as intern and consultant for the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission, and is a member of several ecumenical initiatives such as the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI’17), which is scheduled to take place in Berlin in 2017. She took part as an observer of the WCC in the 2009 CEC Assembly at Lyon (France) and was a speaker in the Ecumenical Conversations of the 2013 WCC Assembly at Busan (South Korea).

The Conference of European Churches has undergone major structural reforms from 2009, moving its headquarters from Geneva to Brussels and uniting the former General Secretariat, the Church and Society Commission (CSC) and the Commission for Churches in Dialogue (CiD) under one roof. It has an office in Strasbourg to facilitate the dialogue with the Council of Europe. The Brussels offices are shared with the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME), with which very close institutional and working relations have been established. The Conference also closely cooperates with national European offices of its member churches, such as the Representation of the Church of Greece to the European Union.

Ms Pekridou will continue the work of the former Geneva based Churches in Dialogue Commission under the new conditions in Brussels. The Commissions’ work has notably been known for projects such as the European Ecumenical Assemblies which CEC co-organised together with CCEE, and the Charta Oecumenica of 2001, in which the Churches in Europe outline their common vision for an ever closer Christian cooperation and the promotion of interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding in Europe.

Volos Academy congratulates Ms Pekridou on her appointment and wishes her all the best. We are convinced that she will be able to draw on her rich ecumenical experiences and theological expertise to bring forward the important work of the Conference of European Churches. May the blessings of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be upon her and guide her in her work for His Church.