Introduction

This CD-Rom contains the full documentation from the 12th Assembly of the Conference of European Churches (CEC), held in Trondheim, Norway, from June 25 to July 2, 2003. It has been conceived first of all as a companion to the volume Trondheim Report (CEC, Geneva 2004, 336 pages), in that it includes a series of texts which could not find a place in the printed version. The CD can also be used as a tool on its own as it contains (in PDF format) all the documents originally printed in the Trondheim Report.

The CD is presented in the form of a website and can be explored with the help of an Internet browser. In order to read PDF files, the Acrobat software can be downloaded, free of charge, from www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

The following items are to be found only on the CD (and not in the printed report):
• the full texts of all available speeches and sermons (for some of them, an excerpt is included in the printed version);
• all final documents, and notably the agenda, the minutes, the reports from sections and the financial report;
• the “Various documents” section includes different items such as texts from plenaries and worship events, the full Assembly programme, the Theme Paper and an explanation of the Assembly logo, designed by Edwin Hassink;
• the lists of participants, CEC member churches and associated organisations;
• a full colour photo gallery, taken from the Assembly website.

Please note that some documents are available only in one language.

I would like to thank all those who contributed to editing the CD, and particularly the web designer Alfredo Franco, the graphist Giulio Sansonetti (who designed the cover from a photograph by Otto Geir Johansen), and my colleagues Ruthann Gill, Andrée Havez and Françoise Maxian. A number of other persons should be thanked, who specially inspired my “Narrative Report”: for them I refer to the Editor’s note of the Trondheim Report.

Let me close this short introduction by quoting a passage from the Foreword to the Trondheim Report, by the CEC General Secretary, Dr Keith Clements:

It is obviously important, as well as being a constitutional requirement, that a full record is always made of a CEC Assembly, the highest decision-making body in the life of CEC. Those who were actually able to attend Trondheim were only a tiny fraction of the whole family of CEC, the total membership of its constituent churches and associated organisations. This report therefore enables a wider circle to know more fully what happened at Trondheim. Beyond this, it will also serve those who were present at Trondheim in an important way: not just as an aid to memory but as an indicator that the total life of the Assembly was much more than any one participant could fully experience or comprehend at the time.


                                                     Luca M. Negro
                                                     CEC Secretary for Communications