T b i l i s s i - The free church charity (diaconic) organisations of Europe are seeking new forms of cooperation with the recently-founded charity organisations of Eastern Europe. A statement released on 20 September by the European Association of Free Church Charity Organisations (Europäischer Verband Freikirchlicher Diakoniewerke) at the end of its six-day conference in Tblissi, Georgia notes this clearly. The paper mentions that „cooperation on charity projects has usually been characterised by high start-up financing from Western partners“. New models must therefore be developed which „more strongly prize the Eastern partners’ own resources“. The statement, affirmed by most of the 65 representatives from 24 charity organisations in five countries, asserts that the spiral of increasing dependancy can only be halted in this fashion. It also states that free church charity work in Eastern Europe must be open for cooperation with other religious and social organisations. Yet in instances of conflict with the Catholic or Orthodox majority church for ex., a self-reliant effort „convincing in its quality“ must be given priority. Important in every instance are ties to a local congregation.

The charity professionals met in the Bethel Charity Centre, opened in June by Georgia’s Federation of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. The centre costing 500.000 Euros was constructed with German and Swiss funding, yet the 7.000 Baptists of Georgia were heavily involved in its inception. The spiritual head of this church, Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili (Tblissi), labeled these sessions „the first international conference of Christians from various Eastern and Western churches in Georgia in nearly 1.000 years“.

Baptist church headquarters are located in this centre, also a home for the elderly, a conference centre and a school for iconography. The conference motto, „Charity in Tension between Spirituality and Social-Political Activity“ was addressed by Songulashvili and Rüdiger Minor (Dresden), the former bishop of Russia’s Evangelical-Methodist Church. Though charity work in the countries of the former Soviet Union is frought with problems, many Christians are toiling selflessly and sacrificially for persons in need without any support from their governments.

At this conference, Budapest-based Hungarian Baptist Aid was accepted as a member. The Baptist charity work of Austria has announced its desire to join. A new board was elected. Past president Harold Eisenblätter, a Baptist pastor from Hamburg, retired for reasons of age after serving for eight years. New president is Fredy Jorns, director of the Methodist Charity Society (Diakoniewerk) Bethany in Zurich.