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Nayla Tabbara is a Sunni Muslim scholar. Fadi Daou is a Maronite priest and theologian. Both are from Lebanon. Together they have discovered something startling about God.

Writing 100 years after the Balfour Declaration and fifty years after Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories captured in the 1967 War, the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) executive committee lamented the ongoing failure of the parties to seek just peace and remarked on “an indelible stain on the conscience of members of the international community” for their failure to resolve the situation.

Reconciliation was once primarily seen as a message of the church but is now used by secular leaders trying to establish peace in communities torn by conflict and war, the WCC president for Africa, the Rev. Mary Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, has said at a major Protestant gathering in Germany.

The WCC is calling on Christians worldwide to join in prayer for just peace in the Holy Land by taking part in a Pentecost prayer service.

As Berit Hagen Agöy visited St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Cairo, Egypt last week, her sadness was mixed with hope.

Church leaders, led by Pope Tawadros II and Pope Francis, were gathered to pray for the people of Egypt, for unity, for peace and justice in St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, the chapel next to Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral that was bombed in December 2016, now restored.

Protecting human freedom and dignity is a vital contribution to peace-building by religious communities, said Ecumenical Patriarch His All-Holiness Bartholomew I as he spoke at the Al-Azhar International Peace Conference on 27-28 April in Egypt.

Speaking at the Al-Azhar International Peace Conference on 27-28 April in Egypt, the Ecumenical Patriarch, His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, Pope Francis and WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit address topics of misinterpretation of religious text, the culture of peace in religion, and global peace and how it is affected by poverty, illness and exploitation.

The fifteenth of March 2017, marks the sixth year since the start of the Syrian war.
Lebanon, being a small Middle Eastern country facing constant political and national unity challenges with a population of approximately 450,000 Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, has been the shelter for more than 2 million registered Syrian refugees since 2011.

Religious leaders in Cyprus stood together against violence towards women and girls, releasing a first-ever official joint statement on 8 March to mark International Women’s Day.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) today expressed grave concern about a new law passed on Monday by the Knesset which reportedly forbids granting entry visas to foreign nationals who call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts of either Israel or the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The ‘Entry to Israel Act (Denial of Visa to Non-Residents Who Knowingly Call for a Boycott on Israel)’ apparently makes no distinction between boycotting Israel proper and boycotting products of the settlements, which are widely considered illegal under international law.

WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit joined other speakers at a side event of the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council on 7 March. The speakers, which also included Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department of External Church Relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, addressed the topic of “Mutual Respect and Peaceful Coexistence as a Condition of Interreligious Peace and Stability: Supporting Christians and Other Communities.”

As part of an ongoing, multiyear project called “Walking Together,” an international and interreligious group met in Nicosia, Cyprus, from 6-8 December to explore different facets of the theme “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace,” which undergirds the World Council of Church’s programmatic focus.

Father Emanuel Youkhana rues that, for the third Christmas in a row, the church bells will not ring in Mosul. He recounts that, around June 2014, the numerical religious minorities such as Yazidis and Christians around Iraq’s second biggest city began to face a horrific onslaught by the group calling itself IS (Islamic State), or Daesh in Arabic.

Analyzing efforts to protect religious communities and groups and build peace in Syria and Iraq, the WCC and Norwegian Church Aid presented a joint study on protection needs of religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq. The findings were announced on 12 December to the media and public at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Speaking in Bethlehem on the evening of 8 December, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit reflected on the light from the very first Christmas in the very same town, and what that light means in a global search for just peace.

The story shared by Fr Yakoub Babawe of the Oum-El-Nour Relief Committee of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Iraq’s city of Erbil moved and challenged participants at a recent meeting in Beirut.

The chief cleric of Cairo’s prestigious mosque and university, H.E. Professor Dr Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar al Sharif, has decried the present-day “civilizational crisis” of poverty and insecurity and called for interreligious collaboration to address it.

The WCC is committed to a just peace in Palestine and Israel with a view that this conflict is about justice with deep moral dimensions that must be given proper weight by all if we are to reach a lasting solution. Religion can both contribute to the increase of the level of conflict, or help establish peace. Read the interview with the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

“I have an absolute confidence in your youthful and great enthusiasm and your heightened state of awareness that you will be ambassadors of peace, mercy and cooperation among all peoples.” This message, from Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Dr Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, visibly uplifted and inspired young people attending a seminar, “Youth Engagement, Religion and Violence,” in Cairo this week.