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Rev. Martina Viktorie Kopecka, a priest in the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, is moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) ECHOS Commission for young people. She also serves on the WCC executive and central committees. In February, she was named a goodwill ambassador by H. E. Tomáš Petříček, minister of foreign affairs of the Czech Republic, a role she will serve for one year. Below, she reflects on her hopes and plans for sharing stories from the Czech Republic with the world, bridging divides in her home country, and, ultimately, bringing about new expressions of Christian love.

While the peace process on the Korean Peninsula needs further progress built on trust, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected international humanitarian support and development cooperation efforts. World Council of Churches (WCC) communications invited Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, to discuss the current ecumenical engagement for Korea and role of churches in building a sustainable peace.

Recently the World Council of Churches (WCC) published “The Light of Peace: Churches in Solidarity with the Korean Peninsula.” The article below is linked to the questions in Chapter 15 in the book, a chapter that highlights the road ahead for peace and reconciliation on the peninsula. In this interview, Bishop Hee-Soo Jung, president of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, reflects and shares his deep wisdom, and emphasizes the importance of working for peace and justice.

Rev. Dr Antti Laine is senior advisor for Theology and Ecumenical Relations with Finn Church Aid. He reflects below on how, while the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated gender-based violence, faith-based and humanitarian groups, can provide hope—especially when they work together.

The Right Reverend Dr Christopher Cocksworth is Bishop of Coventry, the senior leader of the Church of England in Coventry and Warwickshire in the United Kingdom. On 14 November 2020, Bishop Cocksworth, along with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as well as more than 30 other bishops, issued a statement welcoming the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and calling on the UK Government to join it. The statement coincided with the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Coventry and destruction of its cathedral.

Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, and Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop in Munich and former president of the German Bishops’ Conference, were awarded the 2020 Augsburg Peace Prize for their “unconditional will to live together in peace.”

Rev. Eva Guldanova is a Lutheran minister, ecumenical theologian, and assistant to the general secretary of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Slovakia. This interview is part of a series dedicated to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

This interview with Fr Manuel Barrios Prieto, secretary general of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), is the first one in a series dedicated to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Mikael Stjernberg is public relations manager for the Christian Council of Sweden, which visited Malta in October to meet with churches and organizations to hear how they worked to produce the material for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and to see how they work with refugees.