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As Norwegian Church Aid continued a digital visit with its global partners, leaders from the organization met with the World Council of Churches (WCC) to discuss creative responses to the world’s increasing needs, and the vital role of church leaders in those responses.

With a year soon past since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spread of COVID-19 a global pandemic, the World Council of Churches (WCC) will observe a week of prayer from 22-27 March. 

The new surge in COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths has drastically increased the need for pastoral care almost everywhere. Brazil and Great Britain are two hard-hit countries, where the pandemic has brought existential questions on the table.  

A WCC support team is online and ready to help WCC member churches as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve. The team—comprised of experts in different facets of faith-related pandemic response—is here for you, said WCC acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca. “These are people who can serve as a tremendous support to the WCC fellowship,” said Sauca.

In a historic joint pastoral statement released on 26 March, the World Council of Churches and Regional Ecumenical Organizations affirmed the urgency of standing together to protect life amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

في بيان رعوي تاريخي صدر يوم 26 آذار/ مارس، أكد مجلس الكنائس العالمي والمنظمات المسكونية الإقليمية على الحاجة الملحة إلى الوقوف معاً لحماية الحياة في خضم جائحة فيروس كورونا المستجد (كوفيد-19).

يوفر مجلس الكنائس العالمي للكنائس الأعضاء بعض المساعدة البشرية خلال جائحة فيروس كورونا المستجد (كوفيد-19). فقد أُتيح فريقٌ من 8 أشخاص لتقديم المشورة للكنائس عن طريقة تعزيز أدوارها خلال جائحة فيروس كورونا المستجد، وكيف يمكنها أن تتكيف كطوائف دينية، وكيف يمكنها أن تتواصل فيما بينها وتتشاطر الخبرات.

The WCC is offering member churches some resources with a human face during the COVID-19 pandemic. A team of eight resource people has been made available to consult on how churches can discern their roles during the coronavirus pandemic, how they can adapt as faith communities, and how they can connect and share with each other.

In a pastoral letter to WCC member churches and ecumenical partners, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit and WCC moderator Dr Agnes Abuom urged people to give highest priority to “doing whatever we can do to protect life” and “This is a time to touch each other’s hearts, by what we say, what we share, what we do – and what we do not do – to protect the life God loves so much.”

Beate Fagerli, World Council of Churches (WCC) assembly coordinator, answers the most frequently asked questions about the upcoming WCC 11th Assembly in 2021.

In a country where Christians are in clear minority, often suffering discrimination, and in a context that has seen repeated frictions and violence between people of different religious traditions, the Church of Norway and Church of Pakistan have broken new ecumenical ground during a recent week in Lahore, Pakistan.

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.