Search results

Resources—including reflections, prayers, and more—are now available to help churches and all people of good will to observe the World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel from 16-23 September 2023.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay called for an end to the Israeli military’s assault in Jenin.  The WCC condemns the assault and calls for the cessation of all violence in the West Bank including that from Israeli settlers.

The WCC central committee expressed continuous concern about two significant territorial crises in the eastern Mediterranean: those within Palestine and Israel, and those within Cyprus. “These politically driven conflicts have resulted in illegal occupations that have spanned decades,” reads a minute released by the governing body.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee released a statement on the human rights situation in the Philippines.

During the World Council of Churches (WCC) leadership delegation visit to Ukraine in May, an ecumenical prayer service was held in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, on 12 May. The service, led by the WCC leadership, WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay, WCC moderator Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, with participation of members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), took place at St Andrew Orthodox Church in Bucha.

World Council of Churches (WCC) Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed concern over a violent protest by rightwing Jewish activists against an Evangelical Christian event in Jerusalem on 28 May.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay shared joyful congratulations with Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who was installed as new primate of Anglican Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

World Council of Churches central committee moderator Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm delivered a lecture at the Kitzingen deanery, a regional church district near Würzburg, for the parishes of the deanery as well as for the public. The lecture, entitled “Just Peace through Military Force? Peace Ethical Considerations in Light of the War of Aggression against Ukraine,” was offered on 29 April

During the 75th commemoration of what Palestinians refer to as the nakba, or “catastrophe”—when hundreds of thousands of people were uprooted during Israel's creation in 1948—World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed solidarity with member churches in the Holy Land.

During an ecumenical morning prayer held 15 May, the World Council of Churches (WCC) staff and partners observed the UN International Day of Living Together in Peace, holding in prayer many nations across the world facing challenges to living together in harmony.

Against the background of the Russian invasion and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, a high-level WCC leadership delegation visiting Ukraine undertook an intensive series of consultations in Kyiv on 11 May 2023, with church leaders, Ukrainian government officials, and others.

A delegation from the World Council of Churches (WCC) is visiting Ukraine on 10-12 May to renew relations with churches and religious organizations and to explore possibilities of joint efforts to achieve just peace in Ukraine.