The church is called to be different, Setri Nyomi said in his keynote address to the European area council. The dominant vision of globalization pushes an economic and political agenda at the expense of those it excludes. The church is called to an alternative vision that is life-giving: that cares for all God's creation and challenges the forces threatening to destroy it.

This global vision is not contemplative: it is oriented to effective local action. The Alliance has seen this at work in connection with apartheid and in addressing gender injustice in church and society. We can do it again in relation to economic injustice and environmental destruction, Nyomi said.

The council met in Oradea in August, hosted by the Reformed Church in Romania. The host church had invested great time and resources in renovating and constructing the Partium Christian University and its Arany János Hostel, which were the main venues for the meeting. Nearly 3,000 people gathered in the local sports arena for the opening service, at which László Tökés, bishop of the Oradea district, preached on the "fruits of truth and justice".

Coping with the past

Perhaps the most painful discussion related to the activities and witness of churches, confessional and ecumenical organisations in what was known during the cold war as eastern Europe.

Alfréd Kocáb of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren was unable to present his paper personally because of the floods in Prague. He wrote that it was necessary to seek the truth about what really happened during this time and to seek forgiveness in the light of the truth. We also need to avoid the same errors in the future: how do we ensure that the church is a place where the many voices of our believers can be heard and the prophets are not silenced?

László Tökés agreed that the past is constantly pressing on the present. Yet to remove the reminders of the past risked endangering the future. Coping with the Romanian past required research to establish the facts, unveiling the sins of the past, confessing guilt, redressing injustice, and restitution of property.

Ilona Motylewska of the small Reformed Evangelical Church in Poland - 4,000 people out of 38 million - said that the experience of her church was different from that of other minority churches in former eastern Europe. Before 1989, being a Reformed Christian did not create problems with the state. The conversion to a market economy and the emergence of a wealthy elite created more pressing problems today than coping with the past.

Katharina Kunter, a church historian from the Church of Lippe in Germany, said that there are many different experiences of the past with which we must cope. A more objective understanding of events required critical scrutiny of both official histories and dissident witness. This could help to shape the future by healing the past. What she had heard in the denunciation of past sins and the demand for compensation and the restitution of property was in theological terms the voice of the law. What she missed was the voice of the gospel, the promise of life and a vision of the future.

Minority churches

The council recognized a sense in which all European churches are minority churches: western European churches find themselves in increasingly secularized societies. But Oradea focused on the specific question of Reformed churches living as minorities alongside majority, notably Orthodox or Roman Catholic, churches.

Reflecting on the experience of Hungarian-speaking churches in the states surrounding Hungary, Béla Kis pointed out that the problems of living as a religious minority were further complicated when the church was also part of a national minority. When travelling to the majority area, the feeling of being a minority increases.

Kis, a journalist from Slovakia, noted that some Hungarian-speaking communities were shrinking. Between 1991 and 2001 the Hungarian-speaking population in Romania decreased by 190,000. In Slovakia, the rate of decrease is approximately 1 per cent each year. Kis contends that although the number of minority communities in Europe is increasing due to immigration, those minorities whose homeland is just across the border need more attention.

"It has become obvious that minority churches intend to improve their situation through consultation and not confrontation," Kis observed, adding that this was "a great feat in theology and ethics".

The council encouraged further contact between Reformed churches in Europe; asked the Conference of European Churches (Cec) to arrange a joint consultation for both majority and minority churches; and proposed that European minority churches be on the agenda of the upcoming general council in Accra.

Justice in the economy and the earth

Eszter Karsay of the Reformed Church in Hungary reflected on some negative aspects of globalization in her country. American, German and French companies now own all the Hungarian power plants, except the nuclear plants. The 18 carbon dioxide wells near Répcelak were sold to the (German) Linde gas company, which promptly replaced the equipment and computers with German products and local engineers with German personnel. Foreign engineers receive higher pay, the cost of energy for the average Hungarian has increased, and most energy profits are repatriated. The Láng engine factory was bought by a Swiss-German company only to be closed. The Hungarian technical intelligentsia must work for foreign investors or face unemployment.

Why did this happen? The common assessment was that the only economic solution was western capital investment, rather than cooperation with other post-communist countries.

There were examples of a more positive balance between economic and social concerns. The French company, Danone, purchased a factory in Gyór intending radically to restructure operations. An internet-driven boycott persuaded Danone to alter its plans to dismiss 700 workers and to recognize that it had bought not just a factory but a "market place".

Smaller is beautiful

In his report to the previous council (Edinburgh, 1995), the then area secretary, Hartmut Lucke, had already called in question the continuation of the European area. But this came too close to the Edinburgh meeting to make its full impact.

This time the question was raised by the outgoing area committee, which appointed a "kick-off committee" to consider future directions and also asked European churches for their opinion.

The more radical suggestions of the kick-off committee were not accepted, and a proposal from the Evangelical Reformed Church (Germany) to close down the area entirely was withdrawn.

But the council elected a smaller area committee - 12 people rather than 20 - mandating it to work out detailed proposals for the future of the area for submission to leaders of the European churches within four years, and meantime to run a reduced and specifically Reformed programme in the fields of theology and interchurch cooperation.

The new officers of the area are: Gottfried Locher (Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches), president; Bishop Marek Izdebski (Reformed Evangelical Church in Poland) and Eszter Karsay (Reformed Church in Hungary), vice-presidents; Kerstin Koch (Church of Lippe, Germany), treasurer; and Ian Alexander (Church of Scotland), secretary.

From a report by Douglas L Chial