A group of Ecumenical Accompaniers completed their service in Palestine and Israel, handing their ministry over to the next wave, and celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the same time.
In 1919, three Armenian families—the Balian, Karakeshian, and Ohanessian families—were brought to Jerusalem by Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs, then military governor of Jerusalem, to renovate the 16th century tiles at the Dome of the Rock in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Twenty-six-year-old Samyah* has no ID card—not Palestinian or Israeli. Born in the West Bank, she once had a Jerusalem ID card after her father but it was revoked. She found out about the revocation when she was 16 and thought had the opportunity to travel with her school to Switzerland. She could not travel. Since then, Samyah and her family have been struggling to regain her Jerusalem ID card.
As Christians around the world look to the Advent season, preparations are in full swing in the place where it all started, Bethlehem, to celebrate that one story that lies at the heart of all Christian traditions.
Here comes the bride. Donned in a wedding gown, Ribhieh Rajabi is walking over a pile of rubble in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem. She’s surrounded by family, friends, journalists, and even strangers who came to show solidarity.
The sun was just setting over Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt when hundreds of protestors turned towards the main plenary hall of COP27 – the United Nations climate change conference – to raise their fists into the air, shouting ‘Pay up! Pay up! Pay up for loss and damage!’
Im Omar—as named after her eldest son—mother of six, must scrape every day for something most people take for granted: water. For her, water is scarce—and it’s directly connected to her family’s livelihood.
It’s not easy to be a youth leader in the Holy Land. “Our youth have a need to recognize God’s calling in their lives,” explained Nadine Bitar, general secretary of Christian Youth in Palestine, a group that supports youth leaders in the homeland of Jesus.
World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca visited Syria, alongside the Middle East Council of Churches secretary general Dr Michel Abs, the general secretary of ACT Alliance Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, and WCC senior advisor on peace building Michel Nseir.
Osama Sayegh has a heart for numbers: four in Deir Ghazaleh, 35 in Kufr Kad, 50 in Toubas, 35 in Jalameh, 67 in Burqin, 130 in Jenin.
He counts the number of Christians left in these communities across the northern part of the West Bank. He reaches with his heart for the people behind those numbers: why are young Christian families leaving? How can he convince them to stay?
From the gateway to the eastern Mediterranean and its pearl, Beirut, an ecumenical delegation came to the Middle East in order to visit spiritual leaders who historically constituted the pillars of ecumenical work.
As a six-year-old boy, Abu El Walid Dajani began helping his father manage the New Imperial Hotel near Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem. The historic property is owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, and leased before 1967 to the Dajani family to run as a hotel. Now 77, Dajani has become the manager. But the threat of eviction is derailing a way of life his family has known for generations.
Um Ismail, in her 50s, loves her children fiercely and wholly, as mothers do all over the globe. But for Um Ismail, who lives in the Khan Al-Ahmar Bedouin community, finding enough water for her ten children plunges the family daily into near catastrophe.
As church bells resounded over Paralimni, Cyprus on Sunday, the congregation gathering at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint George welcomed into their midst representatives of a wide range of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches around the world.
With the World Council of Churches (WCC) 11th Assembly less than four months away, the Church of Cyprus serves as host as the WCC brings Orthodox churches together for an Inter-Orthodox Pre-Assembly Consultation on 9-16 May.
Over hundreds of years, Sami El-Yousef’s ancestors have participated in the Holy Fire procession, carrying a banner representing one of the 13 oldest Christian Orthodox families in Jerusalem.
Father Issa Thaljieh can’t imagine living anywhere but the place where Jesus was born. He has been a Greek Orthodox parish priest at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem for a decade.