Europe is a continent that once sent out numerous missionaries around the world during the 19th century, but now has become a continent full of people who have never heard of the faith - according to the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Samuel Kobia.

The ecumenical commission on Faith and Order has opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 28th July-6th August. With 120 members representing the WCC member churches and several non-member churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, the commission's work aims to promote the goal of the visible unity of the Christian church.

During one of the sessions of the commission, when comparing the faith of Africans to Europeans, the commission's moderator, the African theologian David Yemba, pointed to the explosive church growth in Africa. The number of Christians has jumped from 144 million in 1970 to 367 million in the year 2000, according to a survey by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, USA.

Another Methodist theologian from Kenya also addressed the point that "In many places today we can no longer assume the religious, much less Christian, awareness which existed 20 years ago."

In addition, statistics released by the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva show that the number of Lutherans in Africa has risen by nine percent over the last two years while numbers in Europe and North America are falling.

Yemba described Christians in the so-called Third World as "the church of the third millennium".

The full plenary commission on Faith and Order normally meets only once between WCC assemblies. Its previous meeting took place in 1996 in Moshi, Tanzania. The Kuala Lumpur gathering will be the commission's last meeting before the ninth WCC Assembly, to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in February 2006.

The theme of the meeting is "Receive one another, as Christ has received you, for the glory of God" (Romans 15:7).