Search results

Mount Zion, located just outside the current walls of the Old City, via Zion Gate, is of great importance to Christians because this is the area of Dormition Abbey, the Cenacle (the traditional spot for remembering the Last Supper and washing of the Apostles’ feet), and where the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the event of Pentecost.

El periodo de tiempo transcurrido desde el 7 de octubre de 2023 se ha descrito de muchas maneras, y, en palabras de Robi Damelin, ha sido “una verdadera prueba de fuego para nuestros sistemas de creencias”.

“No nos iremos de Gaza mientras haya una iglesia en pie”.

“No seremos los últimos cristianos que vivan en Gaza”.

“Lo hemos perdido todo, pero no podemos perder nuestra misión ni nuestra pertenencia a este lugar que tanto amamos”.

“El cristianismo empezó aquí y aquí seguirá”.  

Estas son algunas de las frases que escucha Nader Abu Amsha, director ejecutivo del Departamento de Servicios a los Refugiados Palestinos del Consejo de Iglesias del Oriente Medio (DSRP-MECC), mientras intenta ayudar a los refugiados simplemente a llegar con vida al día siguiente.

The stretch of time since 7 October 2023 has been described in many ways—and Robi Damelin’s words are “a real test of your belief systems.”

“We won’t leave Gaza as long as there is a standing church.” 

“We will not be the last Christians living in Gaza.” “

“We lost everything, but we can’t lose our mission and our belonging to this place dear to our hearts.”

“Christianity started here and will continue to be here.”  

These are the words people are uttering as Nader Abu Amsha, executive director of Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches (DSPR-MECC), tries to help them simply survive the next day. 

El padre Frans Bouwen, sacerdote de la Iglesia católica que vive y trabaja por el ecumenismo en Jerusalén desde 1969, describe con crudeza la situación actual en Palestina e Israel. 

Father Frans Bouwen, a priest in the Catholic church who has been living and working for ecumenism in Jerusalem since 1969, has a stark description of the situation in Palestine and Israel today. 

Women and children in Gaza are bearing the heavy brunt of the ongoing war, according to reports from the United Nations, with close to a million women and girls displaced and 12,882 women and children already perished in a war that has now raged for more than 100 days.

Despite the war, security concerns, and travel restrictions, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine and Israel and the WCC Jerusalem Office continue to operate. Ecumenical accompaniers have observed increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7. 

After being postponed twice because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 15^th General Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) finally got underway in late September and early October 2023 in Kottayam, India. Under the theme "God, renew us in your spirit and restore the creation,” CCA member churches across Asia gathered to stake out the direction forward and evaluate accomplishments and challenges since the last assembly in 2015 in Jakarta. 

With olive picking about to begin in earnest for Palestinian farmers, they are sharing joy in their deep tradition of the harvest—and deep apprehension about harassment and aggression that seems to have already set in.