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General secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit of the WCC has offered congratulations to Bishop Hovakim Manukyan on being installed as the new primate of the diocese of the Armenian Church of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

In a recent ceremony in Bikfaya, Lebanon, the Armenian Church of the Holy Muron was blessed – symbolically anointing the 1.5 million martyrs of the Armenian Genocide. The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit gave an address at the event.

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.

Filipina church emergency programme manager Minnie Anne M. Calub looks to the prophet Isaiah for inspiration in rebuilding her country after the worst recorded typhoon smote her nation of islands in November 2013.

Deeply concerned for migrants in many regions, especially those “driven to undertake journeys of desperate risk and danger”, the WCC Executive Committee has declared: “All members of the international community have a moral and legal duty to save the lives of those in jeopardy at sea or in transit, regardless of their origin and status.”

“Denial, impunity and the failure to remember such events encourage their repetition.” This warning was issued by the WCC Executive Committee in a public issues statement on the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. Meeting in Armenia at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the 20-member committee paid its respects to this year’s commemoration of the tragedy.

On Wednesday 10 June, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan formally received a delegation led by Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians, who introduced the visiting‬ leadership of the WCC Central Committee: Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee, Metropolitan Dr Gennadios of Sassima and Bishop Mary Ann Swenson, vice-moderators, and the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Young ecumenical leaders from Asia have met in Siam Reap, Cambodia to examine how religious traditions can offer resources to overcome religious violence in a changing Asian context.

“The member churches of the World Council of Churches have pledged themselves to stand against all genocides, wherever they happen,” said the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the council (WCC), on the morning of 10 June after a solemn service of remembrance at the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum overlooking the capital city of Yerevan. The service took place in the context of the one-hundredth anniversary of an era of great suffering following mass arrests, executions and deportation of Armenians beginning on 24 April 1915.

Introducing 2015 as “a sacred year in the life of our people and our land,” Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians, welcomed the 20-member WCC Executive Committee to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin at the start of their semi-annual meeting that is taking place from 8 to 12 June.

WCC general secretary Olav Fykse Tveit preached at the 7 May ecumenical service in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral commemorating the centennial of the Armenian genocide.

The WCC general secretary has sent a letter to the President of the Republic of Indonesia H. E. Joko Widodo appealing for clemency for the 10 death row prisoners scheduled for imminent execution in Indonesia.

The WCC remembers today, 24 April, the 1.5 million Armenian victims – children, women and men – who died 100 years ago.

The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has expressed concern and grief over the destruction caused by the cyclone in Vanuatu. In a letter issued to the WCC member churches in Vanuatu and the Pacific region, Tveit offered his prayers for the people and churches.

After a concerted examination of the evidence presented at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and two earlier conferences, 44 of the states present called for a ban on nuclear weapons. The host government Austria added momentum with a specific, cooperative pledge to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition of nuclear weapons” and eliminate them.

Indigenous peoples have a role to play in the struggle against climate change, indigenous faith leaders said during a panel at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change held at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.

Scattered throughout the recent history of Indigenous Peoples are national treaties, declarations and laws that languish in obscurity or are brushed aside and ignored.

To raise awareness of the impact of climate change, representatives of churches, ecumenical organizations and the United Nations stood together in the sea in Apia, Samoa, in prayerful solidarity with those vulnerable to rising sea-levels and extreme weather events.

Fr Rex R. B. Reyes, Jr. vividly remembers what he calls “the fateful morning of 8 November” 2013.

As young people help to facilitate the meeting of the WCC's governing body, they are pursuing a collective pilgrimage of their own.