European Forum Updates
If you would like access to the AGM papers when they are released, please contact hello@onebodyonefaith.org.uk.
RICE 2025 Launch:
Those of you who participated in RICE 2020 will know that the aim of this research is to rate the inclusivity of churches by country in regard to LGBTI+ people in Europe. Thanks to generous funding from the Directorate Emancipation of the Dutch government we are able to revisit the research 5 years on and take stock of where we are now. We have listened to your feedback and made several improvements including methodological changes, additional indicators, more inclusive language, content edits and more diversity within the academic team. We also created an Advisory Committee representing a variety of backgrounds who have guided us with their ongoing feedback.
This research is very important for our current and future advocacy endeavours and, just as before, it can only happen if we work on it together. So, we hope that we can count on your participation in the project. What would it entail for you? Assessing your local (national) church(es) based on a set of clear criteria and providing us with links/references to source documents. You don’t have to do it alone; we hope that you can gather a small team from your local group(s) or allies. Rest assured that your expertise, time and effort will be invaluable to creating this index and will contribute greatly towards the consistency and coherence of our work as an international organization, representing LGBTI+ Christians from all over Europe.
Those of you who completed the questionnaire during RICE 2020 will be emailed directly with an invitation to participate again. Of course, we also welcome more of you to participate! Therefore we have decided to share the information below with all of you directly as EF members.
Please find the link to the questionnaire here: https://form.jotform.com/250444621941352
Please also read the guidance documents including:
Indicators 2025
Please note that the questionnaire will close on the 13/6/25.
Intersex Event Meeting:
We are committed to celebrating and promoting internal diversity. At the 2024 AGM, we recognized the importance of naming and centring intersex people within our community by adding the letter "I" to our organisation's name.
As part of this commitment, we would like to support intersex members of our community in hosting a dedicated event during a weekend in September 2025.
To begin this process, we have scheduled a first preparatory meeting on April 23 at 17:30 CET. We warmly invite all intersex persons interested in brainstorming the themes and content of this event to attend. Participation in this meeting does not require joining the organising team, but insights and perspectives from intersex community members will be highly valued.
Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87114894147?pwd=llQOLnOoT4RVb80xzVElasolnlJWML.1
Elections for the Board:
At this year's Annual General Meeting of the Europen Forum of LGBTI+ Christian Groups in Turku there will be elections for 4 places on the Board:
- Co-President (Tarja Pyykkö is stepping down at the end of the term)
- Secretary (the current Secretary Luke Dowding is running again)
- Treasurer (Ula Grymula is stepping down mid-term for personal reasons)
- Eastern Coordinator (the current Eastern Coordinator Lyoshka Gerassimenko
is running again)
This time Treasurer will be elected for one year now and then re-elected next year for
a full two-year term.
Misza Czerniak (Co-President) and Oliver Jähnke (Communication Coordinator)
continue their 2-year terms.
The Forum’s internal regulations state that the two Co-Presidents must be of different gender identities. They also state that no one gender identity can hold more than 50% of the posts. In total the Board has six members.
Role descriptions for all the Board posts.
Members of the Board are elected for two years, with the option of standing twice more, so they serve for a maximum of six years.
