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During a graduation webcast, students from the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Institute Bossey described what it was like to live for ten months or more in an environment like no other. As they receive their post-graduate degrees in ecumenical studies, they look back fondly on their sense of community, professors—and even the food.

When asked on the day of her graduation how she would describe Bossey, former student Quantisha Mason replied, ’Bossey is like a love letter to God.’ Now, the Ecumenical Institute invites prospective students to apply for the study year of 2021-2022.

Former Bossey student Rev. Jianmei Jing who works at the Jingling Protestant Church in Hongkou near Shanghai in China has shown that masking your intention can be a truly Christian act. At significant sacrifice during the current COVID-19 pandemic when they were in short supply, she managed to get hold of 300 face masks and sent them to the Bossey community who she knew needed them in Switzerland.

Bishops from the Church of Sweden have issue a new missive on the climate emergency that combines scientific knowledge with pastoral care, theology and specific appeals.

In the ten months leading to the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26), faith-based organisations, including Christian Aid, ACT Alliance, and Lutheran World Federation are inviting people to a period of intense prayer for the climate.

Pacific islands experience lasting impacts of the 50 years of nuclear testing and the region has become a global hotspot of climate change, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) learned in its meeting this week in Brisbane, Australia.

Christian Aid has commissioned composers and musicians from around the world to create a new orchestral theme inspired by the climate crisis.

The 12-minute piece, Song of the Prophets: A Requiem for the Climate, is being composed by Chineke! — said to be the first majority-black and minority ethnic orchestra in Europe. It will have its première in St Paul’s Cathedral during Christian Aid Week (12-18 May).

Speaking in Bergen, Norway at an international conference on Sustainability and Climate in Re-ligion organized by the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, The Church of Norway and The Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities in Norway, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit offered reflections on “What’s love got to do with it? Climate justice and care for the earth.”

The WCC has welcomed four new programme executives.

Although she loves what she is doing, there are times when bishop Sofie Petersen feels a strong desire to be someplace else than inside her cosy diocesan office in Nuuk, Greenland. Preferably outdoors, inhaling crisp, arctic air in a stunningly beautiful landscape where mighty polar bears roam and huge whales gently plough their way through the ice-scattered waters along the coastline.

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.

Bridging the gap between faith and investments with cooperation between different groups was the focus of recent a two-day conference in Geneva. It was a rare meeting of the likes of asset managers and clergy, and the solution at the heart of success was how to collaborate for success based on Christian principles.

“If we should be true to our faith, we cannot be quiet when we see what is happening,” reads the declaration of the Interfaith Liaison Committee to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to the United Nations climate change summit COP25 taking place in Madrid, Spain, 2-13 December. “We are voices that are driven by hope and compassion. In a most urgent situation to bend the emissions down faith traditions must contribute to the urgent transformation.”

“God is never indifferent to climate change that weakens the already weakened, impoverished and scattered populations throughout our world,” said Rev. Dr Nestor Friedrich, from Brazil, as he delivered the sermon during an ecumenical prayer service held on 8 December, in the Spanish Evangelical Church, in Madrid, during the United Nations climate change summit COP25.

As he shared the perspective of an indigenous person at a side event during the 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Madrid, Rev. Glen Chebon Kernell, urged people to adopt a deep respect for Mother Earth.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) was represented at a gathering of more than 40 organizations from across Europe involved in the Blue Community initiative. Blue Communities, a concept founded by the Council of Canadians and the Blue Planet Project, recognize water and sanitation as human rights, promote public control over water resources and ban or phase out the sale of bottled water in public facilities and at events.

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.

Representatives from multiple faith and religious backgrounds came together in Madrid, Spain on 1 December to find common ground in preparation for the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) 25 in Madrid, Spain.