The May 9-16 World Council of Churches' meeting that concluded on Monday also heard calls for churches to deal with other challenges including the world's HIV/AIDS pandemic, and what was described as a global system that concentrates economic power in fewer hands.

"At a time of economic globalization, money has been elevated to the level of an idol," said WCC general secretary the Rev. Samuel Kobia on Sunday evening at a service in Athens at the Areopagus where in the first-century St. Paul is said to have preached Christianity to skeptical Greek philosophers.

"Our world today is in serious need of a moral compass," Kobia said in his address to mark the end of the WCC-organized Conference on World Mission and Evangelism held near the Greek capital. The gathering was the latest in meetings going back to 1910, but the first held in a country such as Greece where most people belong to the Orthodox church.

Greek Orthodox leaders acknowledged they faced criticism from some of their faithful for inviting the WCC to Greece. As the closing event at the Aeropagus was taking place, critics, some of whom saw the gathering as heretical, were to hold a meeting in the city's War Museum.

Still, it was the first such conference where the Roman Catholic Church sent full delegates, as did Evangelical and Pentecostal churches and networks, alongside the mostly Protestant, Anglican or Orthodox denominations that belong to the Geneva-based WCC.

"That itself is a huge step forward," noted Catholic Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. During the meeting Farrell announced plans to restart official dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches that had stalled in recent years.

Pentecostal leaders, too, welcomed the opportunity for meeting other denominations at the conference, whose theme was "Come, Holy Spirit, heal and reconcile."

"The Orthodox have a very strong spiritual tradition which is also strong in Pentecostalism," said the Rev. Opoku Onyinah, from the Church of Pentecost, Ghana. "We think this is a link where the Pentecostal church can have dialogue with Orthodox."

Onyinah's denomination says it is Ghana's second biggest after the Catholic Church, and Wonsuk Ma, a Korean Pentecostal missionary to the Philippines since 1979, noted the role of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches would become increasingly important in future.

"Particularly significant will be the role of the non-Western churches, which I represent, with their explosive growth and increasing challenges," said Ma.

Such a shift in global dynamics "though often providing healing, joy and comfort, may also create tensions and disunity," said Kobia in his keynote address to the conference.
 
Warning against "religiously-fuelled racism, culture wars and the clash of civilizations," Kobia said many exponents of particular religions intentionally discounted people of different beliefs and encouraged aggressive behaviour towards them.

"What I would expect as we go about our work on mission and evangelization in the 21st century is that we recognize the diversity of the multi-faith reality of the world today," he urged, noting that interfaith dialogue would be a priority in the future for the WCC.

Said the Rev. Alain Rey, from French-headquartered CEVAA, a mission grouping of churches worldwide, "There are few places for theological reflection between religions. Inter-religious dialogue, particularly between Islam and Christianity, is often reduced to cooperation between people of goodwill united by the desire for peace."

One challenge the different religions need to face together is HIV/AIDS, said South African-based Anglican priest Johannes Petrus Heath who coordinates a network of African religious leaders who, like him, have tested positive for the HIV virus.

He said, "What HIV has done is highlighted the fact that when we work together, the impact is so much greater than when we are apart."