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"To be one, the Church must go back to its common basis. Nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified", the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has said. The cross is not just a sign of religious identity, he added, but a "reality check" for both the churches and the ecumenical movement.

The endowment of two new scholarship funds geared towards facilitating studies at the Ecumenical Institute of the WCC was celebrated at the graduation ceremony for the 61st session of the institute's Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies on 3 February.

The role of the church in building just peace was highlighted last week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where three World Council of Churches (WCC) advisory groups met to recognize the culmination of the Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) and the forthcoming International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) scheduled for May 2011.

Proper theological education is of strategic importance for the future of Christianity. So is ecumenical formation for the future of the ecumenical movement, according to a world report on the future of theological education.

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Religious diversity is an unavoidable reality today – and an opportunity, according to the participants of an interfaith seminar held in July at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey outside Geneva, Switzerland.

"We believe that this is a moment where we are invited by God to commit ourselves to be instruments of change in the church and the wider society," participants in an international conference on "Churches against Racism" have said, 17 June. The message was read in the presence of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands during a closing worship service.

An upcoming meeting of 120 theologians from nearly all Christian traditions will be looking at what churches consider to be their mission in the world and how they come to decisions on theological, ecumenical or moral questions.

The Dutch queen will be the guest of honour at a conference seeking to take on the legacy of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) historic anti-racism efforts.

By Sara Speicher (*)

The hope that all Christians will be able to celebrate Easter on the same day in the future was reaffirmed by an international ecumenical seminar organized by the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, 15 May.

Five young men and women from Australia, Kenya, Greece, India and Scotland, who are attending the German Kirchentag as part of their year-long internship with the WCC, will convey their impressions of this nationwide protestant convention on a new blog .

By Emma Halgren (*)

By Henrik Hansson (*)

Rediscovering the testimonies of Christian faith men and women of different Christian traditions gave over the centuries was the goal that brought some eighty participants from a variety of traditions and countries to the Italian monastery of Bose this autumn.

The myth according to which host countries are "victims" of migration needs to be challenged, as in fact their economies benefit from the exploitation of the migrants' work.

www.FaithConnectsUs.org is a new website launched during the "New Fire: Young Adult Ecumenical Days", a gathering of young adult ecumenists from the United States that took place in Denver, Colorado, 8 - 10 November 2008. The participants expressed a strong desire to deepen the relationship with one another, to work more effectively to be the body of Christ to the world and to add 'New Fire' to the ecumenical movement.