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Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, spoke on a nuclear weapons-free world during “The Audacity of Peace” gathering in Berlin.

A conference held in Wuppertal, Germany, and online on 9-12 April published a message calling on churches across the world to not only listen more closely to the victims of human rights violations, but to act in stronger solidarity with them.

Bringing together biblical, theological and practical perspectives on human dignity, participants of the international conference in Wuppertal challenged churches for a common understanding and protection of human rights during the public panel discussion on 11 April.

Addressing the challenges for a common vision of churches on human rights today, the international conference “Christian Perspectives on Human Dignity and Human Rights” will take place on 9-12 April in Wuppertal, Germany. Everyone is invited to follow the public session of the conference on 11 April, when a panel of the keynote speakers will bring together biblical, theological and practical perspectives on human dignity.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) shared insights and resources related to children’s rights at an “Open Reli” event coordinated by the Pedagogical Institute of the Protestant Church in Baden on 24 March.

At the annual Karlsruhe Foyer Church and Law reception on 15 June, German bishops gathered with judges of the Federal Constitutional Court and Federal Court of Justice, as well as representatives of the Federal Prosecutor's Office and of the legal profession in Germany, to hear some reflections on “Ecumenical engagement for human rights, and current challenges.”

Many ecumenical pioneers, including former WCC general secretary Philip Potter, were in a sense a product of the Sunday School movement. Ulrich Becker tells a story that seems to be in danger of being forgotten.

The need for urgent ecumenical responses to the dangerously escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula was the focus of a meeting of the Ecumenical Forum for Peace, Reunification and Development Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula (EFK) held in Leipzig, Germany on 7-8 July.

The experience of his father’s fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 and then living alien and stateless in Sweden provides biblical theologian Hans Ucko with the touchstone of his writing about stateless persons.

The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), at its meeting in Trondheim, Norway, 27 June 2016, has elected a new executive committee with 11 new members.

A plenary discussion on support by religious communities for the rights of children, and a first draft of the statement of “principles for child-friendly churches,” captured the imagination of the Central Committee of the WCC on 27 June. The document will now undergo further revision and be resubmitted at the next WCC executive committee meeting.

Women and children figure prominently as refugees in mass movements of people in recent months and their rights will be at the forefront of a summer school organized in Greece by the Conference of European Churches.

Following the WCC/UN High Level Conference on the Refugee Crisis in Europe, which took place at the Ecumenical Centre Geneva on 18-19 January, a statement has been issued entitled "Europe’s Response to the Refuge Crisis, From Origin to Transit, Reception and Refuge, A Call for Shared Responsibility and Coordinated Action”.

Reflections from the International Conference on Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula in Arnoldshain, Germany

In the wake of recent crisis with the refugees in Europe, it is “absolutely and critically necessary that all European states take their proper responsibility in terms of reception and support for people seeking refuge, safety and a better future for themselves and their families. This cannot be left only to the states where they enter first,” says the WCC general secretary.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.