Search results

After learning about the link between HIV and sexual and gender-based violence, the Rev. Neila Ingram said what was on the minds of many women religious leaders: “So now I have work to go and do in my community and church.”

How will Christmas 2016 be in the Middle East? Two Christians, one refugee mother in Lebanon and one pastor in Qamishli in northeast Syria, tell how difficult the message of Jesus’ birth becomes in times of war and unrest.

The ecumenical dialogue between churches has a long and fruitful history. But since war and terrorism are threatening the existence of churches in the Middle East, Christians of this region feel more and more neglected by their Western partners.

The story shared by Fr Yakoub Babawe of the Oum-El-Nour Relief Committee of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Iraq’s city of Erbil moved and challenged participants at a recent meeting in Beirut.

Manuel Quintero is retiring after eight years of service as the international programme coordinator for the WCC Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). He took time to reflect on the mission of EAPPI, particularly within its current context, as well as aspects of the programme that have been dear to his heart.

The latest edition of the quarterly WCC journal features a discussion of the roots of religion and violence in the Middle East. Five presentations drawn from three WCC-sponsored conferences of recent years explore aspects of the religious concepts of “promised land,” the “theology of land” and how to go about “reading the Hebrew Bible in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

What does the impending 500th anniversary mean outside its European birthplace? In the Middle East, Reformation stands for a strong legacy yet also the uncertain future of a tiny and splintered minority. The churches of the Reformation remain important within the constellation of Christian groups, say non-evangelical Christians, who call upon them to lead in ecumenical outreach to newer charismatic and Pentecostal groups.

Tarek Mitri knows that his identity as a Christian affects what people expect of him. The Lebanese academic, whose career has spanned politics, diplomacy and a stint on the staff of the World Council of Churches, has learned to handle reactions from people who have set ideas about what he will, and should, say on public issues.

Closer ties being forged between the United States of America and Cuba can help strengthen the hopes and material situation of people in the Caribbean nation, says the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Participants in a recent conference on the refugee crisis in Europe, hosted by the WCC, said they felt energized by the reports from a multitude of activities undertaken by churches from Lebanon to Finland through Serbia, Greece and Germany.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), has issued a statement on behalf of the Council hailing the historic meeting of Pope Francis, pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.The two leaders met on 12 February in Havana, Cuba.

“The way we handle the refugee crisis, not least the settling in and integration process, will be of utmost significance, both for the attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers in the future, and for the long-term stability and sustainability of our own societies”, said Knut Vollebaek, ambassador and former Norwegian foreign minister, in his speech at the recent WCC/UN conference on Europe’s refugee crisis.

“Once, the Mediterranean Sea was called ‘the lake of peace’,” said Dr Tarek Mitri of Lebanon at a recent conference promoting a coordinated response to massive migration in Europe. "Today, we find it is a lake of tears, fears and dangers.”

Churches in Europe have a crucial role to play in responding to the arrival of refugees in Europe, Germany's interior minister has told a gathering in Geneva of governments, United Nations agencies, church and faith groups and civil society organizations.

Mere days after terror attacks in Beirut and Paris, the theme of an interfaith meeting of Christians and Muslims at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on “Religion, Peace and Violence” was entirely appropriate, said participants.

Commemorating the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23 was to have been the principal focus of the service of Sunday morning prayer on 15 November in the cathedral church of Saint-Pierre at the summit of Geneva’s old town. Following terror attacks in Beirut and Paris killing and wounding hundreds of civilians over the preceding days, the prayers of the Protestant Church of Geneva and the WCC Executive Committee took on a new dimension.

The WCC Executive Committee has strongly condemned the latest terror attacks in Paris and Beirut.

Bombings in a crowded civilian shopping area in Beirut, Lebanon, have been responded to by both the Middle East Council of Churches and the WCC with expressions of sympathy, outrage and continued resolve to work for peace and stability in the Middle Eastern nation.

The Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network of the WCC in collaboration with the Council for World Mission and International Disability Alliance hosted a two-day seminar on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

An international conference held at the invitation of the Foreign Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Nikos Kotzias, has gathered around 70 prominent religious, political and academic figures in Athens, Greece, this week.