Search results

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.

Expressing shock at the killings in Kuwait, Tunisia and France that took place on 26 June, the WCC acting general secretary Georges Lemopoulos said, “I grieve with those who have lost loved ones, and those who have been injured as a result of these appalling acts, which have marred the month of Ramadan, sacred to Muslims everywhere.”

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church interacted with the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC on 22 June during their week-long meeting at the Caraiman Monastery in the southern Carpathian Mountains of Romania.

At its first meeting after being reconstituted following the 10th Assembly of the WCC, the 49-member Faith and Order Commission has elected five vice-moderators to assist the commission’s moderator, British theologian Rev. Dr Susan Durber of the United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom.

On a visit to Romania from 16 to 18 June during which he addressed a meeting of the Faith and Order Commission, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit paid formal visits to Romanian President Klaus Werner Johannis, and Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The WCC has condemned the mass killing at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, United States.

The WCC says it is grateful that the churches of the Union of Utrecht, the Philippine Independent Church, and the Episcopal Church have embarked on a study about Globalization and Catholicity.

Four weeks of negotiations on nuclear weapons came to a close on Friday 22 May, as the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ended without a formal agreement. Despite the outcome, a bright new prospect towards a world without nuclear weapons has emerged in the form of a Humanitarian Pledge, now endorsed by 107 states, which promises “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.

“Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the values upheld by our respective faith traditions”, representatives of some 50 Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish organizations said on 1 May. The inter-religious statement came in a joint call to the 191 governments participating in the world’s largest disarmament treaty. The call, co-sponsored by the WCC, was made during civil society presentations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York City.

Amidst intimidation, illegal arrests, disappearances, torture and killings in Tanah Papua resulting from tensions between the Indonesian authorities and the Papuan pro-liberation groups, churches seek justice, peace, dignity and security for the Papuans.

Should robots make life and death decisions? Religious leaders are asked to tell governments “Never”.

The WCC mourns the death of Leopoldo J. Niilus, former director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), renowned lawyer, peace negotiator and author of several writings on human rights and international affairs.

A court decision in the Dominican Republic annulling the citizenship of an estimated 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry has been strongly criticized by church leaders, including the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Challenged by Christians from Brazil to strive for greater respect for religious and cultural diversity, churches are reflecting together on the gospel of John as they celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Ferguson is in turmoil. So is New York. And so is Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, a long-standing institution of theological education located on the upper west side of Manhattan – or in West Harlem – since 1836.

The WCC Executive Committee has expressed deep concern over recent developments in the United States following the Grand Jury’s decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown.

Members of the WCC's Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network met in the Netherlands to develop a new statement with the working title "Gift of Being: Called to be a Church of All and for All". The new document is founded on the premise that persons with disabilities experience marginalization both in societies and in the church communities themselves.

At the Central Committee meeting of the WCC, leadership of the Council’s consultative bodies was announced. These bodies will steer through the work of the WCC in accomplishing the call from its 10th Assembly to engage in a “pilgrimage of justice and peace”. The WCC assembly was held in the Republic of Korea in 2013.

Churches in the United States, including member churches of the WCC, have called on the Obama administration to open up a high-level dialogue with Cuba aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries.