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The World Council of Churches (WCC) will be represented at the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) World Assembly on 2-10 August in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Rev. Dr Santanu Kumar Patro, registrar of the Senate of Serampore College (University), passed away on 5 May in Calcutta. The news of his death was met with outpourings of grief and gratefulness from students, faculty and friends of seminaries and institutions responsible for theological education in South Asia and beyond.

Rev. Fr Dr Lawrence Iwuamadi is dean of the Ecumenical Institute, the graduate school which opened its academic year this week. Below, Iwuamadi reflects on the arrival of new students at the Ecumenical Institute during this remarkable time.

Alumni from the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute Bossey who live in Thailand are continuing to foster ecumenical activities and relations. Every year for a decade, they have offered a local orientation for new students from Thailand who are headed to Bossey.

Former Bossey student Rev. Jianmei Jing who works at the Jingling Protestant Church in Hongkou near Shanghai in China has shown that masking your intention can be a truly Christian act. At significant sacrifice during the current COVID-19 pandemic when they were in short supply, she managed to get hold of 300 face masks and sent them to the Bossey community who she knew needed them in Switzerland.

As of January 2020, the WCC has relaunched its Sarah Chakko Scholarship Fund. The fund was first established in 1998, at the end of the Ecumenical Decade of Solidarity with Women, aiming to promote the education of women for leadership competencies for the ecumenical movement.

Social media was awash with messages of love on Valentine’s Day, but from Thursdays in Black supporters, the flowers came with strong messages that love is not violent.

Monday 28 January was a very special day for 25-year-old student Kezia Wairata from Jakarta, Indonesia. Along with 30 dedicated peers she received her diploma in advanced studies of ecumenism at the WCC Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland.

His Eminence Metropolitan Zachariah Mar Nicholovos of the Northeast American Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church celebrated his Episcopal Silver Jubilee, or 25 years in ministry, on 17 November. Metropolitan Nicholovos is a member of the WCC Executive Committee. In an interview with WCC Communication, he reflects on his 25-year milestone, as well as on the challenges and joys of the ecumenical movement today.

The date: 20 February 1991. The last day of the WCC 7th Assembly. The hours were packed with remaining agenda items, the assembly had acquired a second unofficial theme. As moderator, how was Bishop Heinz Joachim Held supposed to bring this incomplete, basically unfinished assembly to a close?

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

“Congratulations for being a student at Bossey!” Fr Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, director of the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey and deputy general secretary, welcomed the students for the new academic year 2018-2019. Thirty-one students from diverse countries and traditions will start their classes at the ecumenical institute on Tuesday.

An international consultation on “Education for Transformation: Challenges and Prospects for Formation and Reformation” was organised to mark the bicentenary of Serampore College, and the centenary of the Senate of Serampore.

Whether as individual believers or as a community, it is our collective task to advocate for Christian unity, says Melanio L. Aoanan from the Philippines. A clear vision for religious and ecumenical theological education is needed that is relevant in the 21st century.

Dr Erlinda N. Senturias, from the Philippines, gives thanks that WCC has created safe spaces for the churches to talk about HIV and AIDS. She asks that the ecumenical movement continue to be a beacon of support for this ongoing journey of health and healing.

The signing of the National Covenanting Document in Australia in 2004 was a significant ecumenical milestone. Ray Williamson Oam traces this journey towards deeper unity with its roots in the Canberra Statement of the WCC 7th Assembly.

Relations between Catholics and Protestants at the local level in East Indonesia are not as complex as talking about dogma at higher church levels, says a pastor from the Protestant Church in Maluku.

Korea’s Christian leaders have urged Catholics to work together with the WCC to help bring peace and reconciliation to their country. Rev. Dr Sang Chang, president of WCC’s Asia region, and Rev. Dr Lee Hong-jeong, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) were speaking as Pope Francis visited the headquarters of the ecumenical movement in Geneva to mark the WCC’s 70th anniversary.

When asked to talk about her story of faith, Rev. Dr Sang Chang doesn’t hesitate for a moment. The president of the Asia region of the World Council of Churches (WCC) is eager to tell how her faith has supported her career as a theologian, academic, advocate for women’s rights, and South Korea’s first female acting prime minister.