One thousand people from across the world gathered at Methodist Central Hall (MCH) in London on Saturday 17 January to mark the 80th anniversary of the first UN General Assembly.
The first meeting was held in the same building on 10 January 1946, five months after the Second World War ended.
URC guests joined with ecumenical friends, interfaith representatives, political leaders and others for a service at which Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, preached. He said that “the United Nations was no abstract treaty; it was a covenant, etched in the memory of the horrors of the Holocaust, the firebombing of Dresden, Coventry and Tokyo, the atomic clouds over Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”
Addressing the current global context, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, described 2025 as “a profoundly challenging year for international cooperation and the values of the UN. “Aid was slashed. Inequalities widened. Climate chaos accelerated. International law was trampled. Crackdowns on civil society intensified. Journalists were killed with impunity. And United Nations staff were repeatedly threatened – or killed – in the line of duty.” Mr Guterres described powerful forces “lining up to undermine global cooperation” and said values of multilateralism were being “chipped away … It is up to us to take a stand.”
The service included an act of remembrance for those who have died in the service of the United Nations (pictured). HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh was joined by two local schoolchildren to light candles for UN peacekeepers, humanitarian workers, and mediators working in areas of conflict.
Lindsey Brown, Head of Ecumenical Relations and Evangelism, said that by drawing on the words of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights, drafted by the UN a couple of years after the inaugural event, “the service also reminded us of the innate worth, value and dignity of all human beings, and the need for states to preserve and protect that dignity.”
A video about the 1946 meeting at Central Hall Westminster was shown during the service. It can be seen at https://bit.ly/UN80thURC.
Representatives of the United Reformed Church pictured (L to R): the Revd Jennifer Mills-Knutsen, minister at the American International Church in London; the Revd Dr Tessa Henry Robinson, President of the Free Churches Group and former URC Moderator; Karen Campbell, Head of Global and Intercultural Ministries; Lindsey Brown, Head of Ecumenical Relations and Evangelism; the Revd Cristina Cipriani, Ecumenical Officer in Southern Synod.