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“Welcoming and protecting the strangers and the aliens, especially the migrants, are at the core of our mission as churches,” said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, in a meeting with Prof. François Crépeau, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants.

Along with other faith-based groups, the WCC has helped develop a declaration, launched by the United Nations refugee agency. It aims to strengthen protection for the world’s refugees as well as internally displaced and stateless people, who account for more than 40 million people in the world.

The WCC general secretary called diakonia an expression of faith that “embodies the signs of God’s reign and makes it visible in all experiences of hope amidst turmoil, in actions that heal and nurture people and relationships.”

In a recent meeting in the Netherlands, theologians and ecumenists came together to give renewed consideration to an interim statement titled A Church of All and for All, first produced in 2003 by the Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network and the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order.

Talk about peace on the Korean peninsula part of discussions at ecumenical consultation on peace and security issues in Asia.

Migrant churches groups gather at the Ecumenical Centre to celebrate Witnessing Together in Geneva.

In developing countries, many Christians are faced with issues of corruption, war, hunger, oppression, killings and new forms of terrorism, said Rev. Dr Ibrahim Yusuf Wushishi, general secretary of the Christian Council of Nigeria, an ecumenical organization representing member churches of the World Council of Churches in Nigeria.

In Tahiti, an ecumenical delegation was told about the need for re-inscription of French Polynesia (Maohi Nui) on the United Nations list of countries to be decolonized.

As the uncertainty of the whereabouts of two Syrian church leaders kidnapped in Syria on Monday continued Wednesday, the patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox churches have issued a joint communique calling on churches around the world to “stand fast in the face of what is going on and witness to their faith in the power of love in this world.”

Describing dramatic consequences of the Syrian civil war, Bishop Elia Toumeh of Marmarita said that when the difficulties pass, Christians must play a constructive role in the reconciliation of opposing factions for a new Syrian society.

[Joint release with the Conference of European Churches (CEC)]