| Summary: | The focus of this thesis is the church-sponsored 'Conciliar Process for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation', which culminated in the GDR in 1988-9 with the Ökumenische Versammlung der Christen und Kirchen in der DDR fur Gerechtigkeit, Frieden und Bewahrung der Schopfling'. This met in three sessions between February 1988 and April 1989, and articulated demands for the reform of the GDR, including the separation of the state and the party, secret ballots for elections, freedom for art and culture, and the right to form independent associations. The Conciliar Process was launched by the World Council of Churches in 1983 to encourage churches to respond to the issues of global injustice, peace and threats to the environment. This thesis identifies the motor for the Conciliar Process in the GDR as the 'Basisgruppen' that grew up in the GDR in the 1980s, and the intellectual underpinnings as being provided by the GDR theologian Heino Falcke, who came to prominence in the 1972 with a call for 'verbesserlicher Soziahsmus', as an alternative to the existing socialism in the GDR.
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