By Philip Mathew
Nagpur, Jan. 5, 2019: Reverend Asir Ebenezer on January 4 assumed office as the general secretary of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI). He succeeds Rev Roger Gaikwad.
The Nagpur-based NCCI is the ecumenical forum of the Protestant an Orthodox churches and their organizations in India.
Some 30 churches and related organizations and agencies are members of the NCCI, founded in 1914.
A native of Tamil Nadu, Ebenezer worked as the director of the Social Empowerment: Vision in Action, a program of the Church of South India (CSI).
An ordained minister of the CSI since 1992, he has served in various positions in national and global ecumenical forums.
He is the first presbyter from the CSI, which is the biggest member church in NCCI, to become its general secretary.
The new general secretary has also worked in the NCCI before as an executive secretary of the Urban Rural Mission, Commission on Policy and National Governance, officiating general secretary in 2010 and also as the finance secretary.