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The Ecumenical Theological Education programme of the WCC hosted the first meeting of the International Planning Group of the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute 2021 in end-January in Karlsruhe, Germany, the venue of the future 11th WCC Assembly.

Students graduating at mountain-framed Bossey on the banks of Lake Geneva have admitted that the decision to come to the WCC Ecumenical Institute was not easy, but they left as a family with proof "that Christian unity can be lived."

As of January 2020, the WCC has relaunched its Sarah Chakko Scholarship Fund. The fund was first established in 1998, at the end of the Ecumenical Decade of Solidarity with Women, aiming to promote the education of women for leadership competencies for the ecumenical movement.

In a reflection in the Ecumenical Centre Chapel in Geneva on 20 January, WCC programme executive for the Faith and Order Commission Dr Ani Ghazaryan Drissi offered a reflection on how important it is that, in difficult times, churches welcome people who have no place to go.

Fr Prof. Ioan Sauca walked through 42 different offices within the World Council of Churches on 13 January, sharing with appreciative staff the “great blessing of waters” according to Orthodox tradition.

During the second week of Advent, staff members of the World Council of Churches and other organizations at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva gathered with their families for the prayer service and celebration of the upcoming Christmas.

Students sat entranced as the theologian recounted that after serving in the Hitler Youth and the German Army as a “patriot” in World War II, he turned his back on nationalism and the horrors of that conflict.

Any prospective student who intends to study at the WCC Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey, in its picturesque setting near Geneva, soon learns it is an exceptional place.

As the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation held its biannual meeting at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey outside Geneva, Switzerland, space was given for a discussion on current concerns and trends in the area of teaching ecumenism in theological institutions today.

“What do the churches need today? And what does the world need from the churches?”, asked Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) as he reflected on the shrinking space for institutional ecumenical theological education in many contexts worldwide at the opening of the biannual meeting of the WCC’s Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation, on 28 October.

"The best thought is one that always leaves a certain crevice for the possibility that everything is totally different at the same time" - Rev. Martina Viktorie Kopecka, moderator of the World Council of Churches ECHOS Commission, cites this as her favorite quote from Václav Havel, opponent to Czechoslovak’s communist regime and later president of his country.

Students at the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Institute at Bossey marked Thursdays in Black on 10 October, together with a group of visitors from Sweden.

Rev. Dr William Adam is the new director of Unity, Faith and Order for the Anglican Communion. He is also the ecumenical adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as a graduate of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute.

As of mid-September, the 2019-2020 academic year is officially underway at the WCC Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey.

Maltese creators of the newly available materials for the upcoming Week of Prayer for Christian Unity have focused on hospitality to the stranger as their theme, evoking the shipwrecked Apostle Paul’s statement that “They showed us unusual kindness” there (Acts 28:2).

From 4-5 September, the three general secretaries of the Communauté d´Eglises en Mission, United Evangelical Mission, and Council for World Mission met with the director of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, Fr Ioan Sauca, and members of the faculty.

A brand new website now shows the breadth and quality of services offered at the WCC Hotel and Conference Centre at the Château de Bossey.

On International Youth Day, Azeez Sadeq, who now lives in Lyon, France, shared his personal story of being an Iraqi refugee.

"Have you ever thought that one day, you can lose everything?” he asked the young people gathered with him.

That's what happened to Sadeq when he was 18 years old, when the Islamic State Organisation, also referred to as Daesh, invaded his village.