New WCC General Secretary elected

On 17 June 2022, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches elected Jerry Pillay as its General Secretary, reports the WCC official website.

Dr. Pillay will take up his position on 1 January 2023. He will replace outgoing acting general secretary Rev. Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, who began serving in that position in April 2020, when the previous general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, was appointed as the presiding bishop of the Church of Norway.

Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay, Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, is a member of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. He was born in 1965 in Natal, South Africa, to Indian parents and studied at the University of Durban.

Jerry Pillay will become the eighth General Secretary in the WCC’s history since the fellowship of churches was founded in 1948. The General Secretary is the chief executive of the WCC, directs its work and has full responsibility for the work of the Council and its staff.

As the UOJ wrote, the World Council of Churches has called for a more "gender-equal society".

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