Jon Chapman, Area Coordinator
Champaka Srinivasan, Administrative Assistant

Regional liaisons

Doug Baker, regional liaison for Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Art Beals, regional liaison for Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo
Bryce and Phyllis Little, regional liaisons for Portugal, Spain
Burkhard Paetzold, regional liaison for Central and Eastern Europe
Gary Payton, regional liaison for Belarus, Poland, Russia, Ukraine

Overview of the region
In the last seven years, the nations of the Europe Area have been drawn together by a common need to build a new regional and national identity to replace the one they lost when the old division of East and West, as defined by the Iron Curtain, ceased to exist. [Read more]

All countries in this area are listed below. Countries with Web pages giving Presbyterian-specific information are highlighted. For other countries, there is currently no PC(USA) involvement in this country or the Web pages have not yet been prepared. The PC(USA) also participates in or relates to work in other countries through ecumenical relationships.

The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, pp. 184, 185

July 1
July 2

(See other individual country pages, and these that do not yet have a Web page:)

Albania, 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 206

July 23

Greece, 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 207

July 24

Italy, 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 205

July 22

Poland, 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 192

July 9

Portugal, 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 188

July 5

Switzerland, 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 203

July 20

Resources

Northern Ireland Journal, available from the Presbyterian Committee for Northern Ireland Web site.

Extra Commitment Opportunities

Related Stories

December 18, 2009 WACC Statement on International Migrants Day
December 15, 2009 Letter from Doug and Liz Searles
December 11, 2009 Letter from Doug and Liz Searles
November 3, 2009 Reaching out in Europe and central Asia: Plenary session shares what the PC(USA) is doing in several countries
October 24, 2009 [Presbyterian Outlook] Stories of faith and struggle told to mission conference
August 27, 2009 [ENI] Norwegian Lutheran elected to lead World Council of Churches
July 20, 2009 [ENI] Conference of European Churches votes for reform by 2013
July 17,  2009 [ENI] Fall of Iron Curtain means churches need 'one voice' in new Europe
July 15. 2009 [ENI] Offer hope to crisis-hit world, European churches' leaders urge
July 2009 Announcement: 2010 Irish Summer Institute June 14–26, 2010
June 1, 2009 Minute for Mission: New Pastors for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Portugal
March/April 2009 Horizons: Presbyterian Mission in Europe: A Historical Overview
March/April 2009 Horizons: The Roma: A Largely Segregated Community in Central and Eastern Europe
March/April 2009 Horizons: That All May Be One: Ecumenism in the Czech Republic and in Europe
September 26, 2008  Portuguese peacemaker is poised to be first woman ordained by her church
April 18, 2008: Master's Program in Ecumenical Studies by distance learning launched in Ukraine

Countries

All countries in this area are listed below. Countries with Web pages giving Presbyterian-specific information are highlighted. For other countries, there is currently no PC(USA) involvement in this country or the Web pages have not yet been prepared. The PC(USA) also participates in or relates to work in other countries through ecumenical relationships.

Albania
Andorra
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
England — See United Kingdom
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland — see Northern Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Kosovo
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia

Overview

Europe Area, as defined here, reaches from Iceland to Siberia. In the last seven years, the nations of the Europe Area have been drawn together by a common need to build a new regional and national identity to replace the one they lost when the old division of East and West, as defined by the Iron Curtain, ceased to exist.

The new European identity has its own new divisions, to be sure: There are the rich nations of the north and west and the poor ones in the south and east. There are the nations of the (mostly nominally) Christian West and the nations that identify themselves in one way or another as Muslim. Inside the nominally Christian part of Europe, there are the nations that use the Latin alphabet and those that use a Cyrillic script, a division that coincides roughly with ancient boundaries between the old Russian Empire and its Slavic allies on the Cyrillic side and the old Hohenzollern and Hapsburg empires on the Latin side. Finally there are the nations that are members of NATO, the nations that want to join and probably will, the nations that want to join but won't be allowed, and Russia and Belarus, which are quite unhappy about the likelihood that NATO will expand in their direction.

The churches in each part of Europe also face their own special challenges: In central and eastern Europe, the church is re-establishing congregations, seminaries and diaconal ministries of all kinds as it recovers from decades of oppression. In southern Europe the church is offering a faithful evangelical witness at the same time it is seeking to demonstrate to its Muslim neighbors that it approaches them as a respectful friend and not as an enemy. In northern and western Europe the church is trying to model for their entire societies how it is possible to integrate immigrants and refugees from the poorer nations to Europe's south and east. All over the region the churches and individual Christians are working to embody Christ's imperative for peacemaking.