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Commemorating the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23 was to have been the principal focus of the service of Sunday morning prayer on 15 November in the cathedral church of Saint-Pierre at the summit of Geneva’s old town. Following terror attacks in Beirut and Paris killing and wounding hundreds of civilians over the preceding days, the prayers of the Protestant Church of Geneva and the WCC Executive Committee took on a new dimension.

The WCC Executive Committee has strongly condemned the latest terror attacks in Paris and Beirut.

A delegation representing churches and ecumenical bodies around the world met for an historic international ecumenical visit and meeting in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from 23 to 30 October.

Addressing a Council for World Mission Theological Colloquium in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, the head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and president of the Lutheran World Federation affirmed the “need of a spirituality that helps us remain steadfast, that gives us the courage to act not with hatred and revenge, but in the pursuit of peace based on justice”.

Cardinal Kurt Koch of the Roman Catholic Church, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has granted an interview to WCC News. The conversation took place at the Global Christian Forum in Tirana, Albania where 150 high level leaders and representatives of various church traditions from more than 60 countries gathered to listen and learn from one another and to stand in solidarity with churches and Christians experiencing discrimination and persecution in the world today.

Participants in Manilakbazan 2015, called by some the “Lumad caravan”, have come to Manila for a month-long series of activities and protests to bring attention to human rights violations in Lumad communities of the Philippines.

An international conference held at the invitation of the Foreign Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Nikos Kotzias, has gathered around 70 prominent religious, political and academic figures in Athens, Greece, this week.

It is raining. It is cold and windy. Autumn is in the air in northern Greece. We have just arrived at the Idomeni refugee camp in northern Greece, on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The fast-approaching winter poses as great a threat to the refugees as do the smugglers. In the worst case, winter means death.

Following the burning and demolition of church buildings and the flight of many Christians from their villages in Indonesia, the WCC general secretary has expressed the world fellowship’s support of religious liberty and its solidarity with Indonesian believers as churches assist displaced people and work toward future peace.

Adebayo Anthony Kehinde leads an African group supporting ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Its interfaith campaign is especially significant on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan.

The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has expressed deep concern over the renewed wave of violence in Jerusalem. In a letter to WCC member churches in Palestine and Israel, he expressed solidarity with the churches and peoples of the land, and affirmed WCC’s commitment to justice and peace in Palestine and Israel.

To achieve just peace in the Middle East, “it is very adequate to focus on what would maintain and reinforce the cultural and religious diversity that has distinguished this region for long centuries,” said the WCC general secretary.

To revitalize and strengthen the ecumenical commitment for justice, healing, reconciliation and peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula, the Ecumenical Forum on Peace in Northeast Asia was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

In the wake of recent crisis with the refugees in Europe, it is “absolutely and critically necessary that all European states take their proper responsibility in terms of reception and support for people seeking refuge, safety and a better future for themselves and their families. This cannot be left only to the states where they enter first,” says the WCC general secretary.

“The world must support a real peace process in Syria now to stop these tragedies for peoples and cultures,” according to the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit. He said the reports received of the destruction by so-called “Islamic State” of a fifth-century monastery near Homs, Syria, is – “a further expression of Islamic State’s extremist agenda.”

“The first thing that is required of us is to live the courage of our convictions. For the World Council of Churches, our conviction is that the world must be freed of nuclear weapons,” said the Rev. Dr Sang Chang, WCC president for Asia, in her address at the Nuclear Disarmament Symposium held in Hiroshima.

Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and a member of the church leaders’ pilgrimage to Japan on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, pressed the case for the Humanitarian Pledge against nuclear weapons at the Hiroshima Day rally on 6 August 2015.

“It is time to abandon all support for retaining nuclear weapons. It is time to refuse to accept that the mass destruction of other people can be a legitimate form of protection of ourselves,” said Bishop Mary Ann Swenson at the Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima.

The World Council of Churches invites its member churches to join in prayer for peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula on Sunday, 9 August.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.