On Palm Sunday, accompaniers from the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel walked in the traditional procession, carrying messages of solidarity with Gaza Christians during an especially painful time.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has published online new materials related to the 2024 WCC-EAPPI Easter Initiative: “Out of the darkness – Easter solidarity with the Holy Land.”
A World Council of Churches (WCC) Easter Initiative will lift up the call to roll away the heavy stone of violence, war and occupation, pain and suffering, and to remind the world of what is needed to bring about peace, to transform swords into ploughshares.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) Jerusalem Liaison Office Advisory Group convened on 20 February under the leadership of WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog formally received World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay on 20 February, to discuss the current situation in Israel and Palestine, and the war in Gaza.
World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay and delegation met with Sheikh Azzam Khatib, director of Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem on 18 February, reiterating the WCC’s commitment to maintaining Jerusalem as a city of all three Abrahamic religions.
World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank, on 19 February, urging an end to the “seemingly endless cycle of violence and suffering.”
Member churches, religious leaders and local Christian groups in Palestine and Israel—as well as Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli president Isaac Herzog—will meet with World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay as he visits the area beginning 16 February.
Six ecumenical accompaniers have returned to Palestine and Israel, resuming in-person operations for the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. Ecumenical accompaniers, who were evacuated beginning of October 2023, had been continuing their support and accompaniment online.
Ministering to the needs of displaced people, most of them south of Gaza, the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches has a clear message to the world.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) supports a UN resolution, passed on 12 December 2023, demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem released a statement on 10 November about the celebration of Advent and Christmas in the midst of the war.
On 28 October, faithful parents gathered at St Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza to baptize their babies. The traditionally joyful baptisms were undergirded by fear: parents were having their young ones baptized so that if the babies perish in the war, they will die as Christians.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is condemning an attack on one of the buildings within the compound of the St Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza. The building—affiliated with the church, which is one the oldest churches in Gaza—has collapsed in the explosion, caused by Israeli missile strikes, according to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
The World Council of Churches (WCC), in the aftermath of brutal violence where thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives, is calling for a new approach to resolve the conflict in the Holy Land.
Church leaders in the Holy Land are raising their voices in unity to call for the cessation of all violent and military activities that bring harm to both Palestinian and Israeli civilians.
Following the outbreak of hostilities on 7 October – with a reported launch of thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel and the infiltration of southern Israel by Hamas gunmen, and an ensuing Israeli military response – the World Council of Churches (WCC) is adapting its work in the Holy Land to continue to support efforts for just peace.
During a film screening at the World Council of Churches on 4 October, viewers got a deeper understanding of why Palestinians are about to lose one of the last green spaces left for them in the Bethlehem Governorate.
Human rights violations in Israel and Palestine have nearly tripled during the past year, according to reports from the most recent set of ecumenical accompaniers from the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.