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The Orthodox Church of Albania, with a Festive Divine Liturgy on 2 August, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the election and appointment of Archbishop Anastasios as the head of the church.

On Saturday in Charlottesville, one woman died and 19 others were injured when a man who, after rallying with white supremacist groups, rammed his car into a crowd. Earlier in the day, two law enforcement officers lost their lives when their helicopter crashed as they patrolled the building crowds.

As the recent developments of nuclear weapons and increased tensions between United States and North Korea leaders can bring the world to the brink of war, churches around the world are calling for bilateral dialogue, expressing their commitment to peace and nonviolent resolution.

The WCC has begun the process of digitally publishing its Faith and Order Papers, a set of legacy materials comprising 300 discrete publications and totaling 35,000 pages.

Last week, young Jewish, Muslim and Christian students learned about communication and peacebuilding during a workshop at the Ecumenical Centre, all with the hope of serving as peacemakers in their own contexts. The session was led by Marianne Ejdersten, director of WCC Communication.

The first ever action plan specifically designed to enable religious leaders to prevent incitement to violence - the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes - was launched on 14 July by Secretary-General António Guterres at a meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

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.

As young people earned an interreligious studies certificate at the World Council of Churches Bossey Institute, they completed their three-week course with unified thoughts on promoting peace. In a communique issued on 13 July, they identified themselves as Jews, Christians and Muslims - children of Abraham - with a unique openness.

Around 60 participants from Christian churches all over the world gathered in Beit Sahour for peace consultations two weeks ago.

The World Council of Churches has welcomed the signing of two ecumenical statements by the World Communion of Reformed Churches in which it seeks to overcome divisions of the past and to work with other Christian communions for unity and common witness.

Banning nuclear weapons is something like climbing a mountain. The summit of this mountain – agreement on a ban treaty – is now clearly in view at United Nations negotiations in New York.

Reconciliation was once primarily seen as a message of the church but is now used by secular leaders trying to establish peace in communities torn by conflict and war, the WCC president for Africa, the Rev. Mary Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, has said at a major Protestant gathering in Germany.

"Ecumenical work is not nostalgia nor superficial use of metaphors. It is the hard work we do in mutual accountability to one another,” says WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in his introduction to the WCC Annual Review 2016, which is now available in print and digital form online.

As Berit Hagen Agöy visited St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Cairo, Egypt last week, her sadness was mixed with hope.

Protecting human freedom and dignity is a vital contribution to peace-building by religious communities, said Ecumenical Patriarch His All-Holiness Bartholomew I as he spoke at the Al-Azhar International Peace Conference on 27-28 April in Egypt.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, delivered a public address at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 24 April as part of his official visit to Switzerland on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his enthronement as Ecumenical Patriarch and the 50th anniversary of the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit joined others in congratulating Prof. Jürgen Moltmann for receiving an honorary doctorate of divinity degree on 5 April from the Theological Faculty of Pretoria University, South Africa.

Linked to the 34th session of the Human Rights Council, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue organized a side event on 15 March exploring "Islam and Christianity, the Great Convergence: Working jointly towards equal citizenship rights". World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit was among the panellists.

Expressing concern regarding recently announced US measures related to refugee admissions and entry into the US by seven Muslim-majority countries, the World Council of Churches (WCC), ACT Alliance (ACT), and The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) affirmed that faith calls all Christians to love and welcome the stranger, the refugee, the internally displaced person - “the other.”

Before accepting the position of programme executive for the WCC Faith and Order Commission, Dr Ani Ghazaryan Drissi was involved with the WCC in several different ways.