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As a search continued for missing migrants after a fishing boat capsized off the coast of Greece, the World Council of Churches (WCC) conveyed prayers to the families of victims, and to the churches in Greece and elsewhere that are responding.

The Church of Sweden has renewed its apology to the Sámi people, this time in Sápmi in the Luleå Cathedral.

A webinar held 22 October gave space for persons with disabilities to share their reflections. Entitled “From Lamentation to Transformation,” the event, first in a series of webinars on COVID-19 perspectives, highlighted hope through stories, practical support, and social change as experienced by persons with disabilities.

The Migrant Network of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark has started a series of webinars about church, migration and integration. The perspective is how to grow an international church in Denmark, and the discussion also centers on the global Christian fellowship.

Beate Fagerli, World Council of Churches (WCC) assembly coordinator, answers the most frequently asked questions about the upcoming WCC 11th Assembly in 2021.

Highlights of African missiology will be explored during an event to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 13 February.

The WCC has welcomed four new programme executives.

As the Finnish Mission Council celebrated its centenary on 12 October in Tampere, Finland, the Lutheran Archbishop of Finland, Dr Tapio Luoma, celebrated the witness in mission of the earlier missionaries and generations. Luoma also urged every generation to find answers to the question of how to live fully as a disciple of Jesus and fulfil his commission.

The movie Eldorado, in which filmmaker Markus Imhoof examines the European migrant crisis and contrasts it against his boyhood experience with a post-World War II Italian refugee, has received recognition from the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and SIGNIS, a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication.

The film was awarded because it highlights universal values.

How much is the mission of the church related to people with disabilities? These days we talk a lot about inclusive societies and churches. But, have we arrived there? Are our societies and churches taking seriously the problems and challenges that people with disabilities face on a daily basis? People with disabilities find themselves quite often at the margins of the societies and even of the churches.

The Arusha Call to Discipleship is at once exhilarating, transformative and challenging to the point of discomfort for some, reflected leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) during a 20 May press conference and book launch in Helsinki, Finland.

World Council of Churches partners in Arusha, Tanzania reflected on the realities in the communities they serve as they met one year after the World Council of Churches’ Conference on World Mission and Evangelism.

In an opening address at a Forum on Modern Slavery in Istanbul on 7 January, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke on “Awareness, Action and Impact.” After many centuries of progress and advancement, we still live in a world where injustice and slavery continue to thrive, and where human dignity is exchanged for the sole purpose of greed, gain, and profit, reflected Bartholomew.

Dealing with people on the move is crucial to the work of the Church in the 21st century says Greek Metropolitan Gabriel of Nea Ionia and Filadelfia. More than 31,000 irregular migrants arrived in Greece by sea in 2018 and almost 17,000 arrived by land, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

WCC News met with the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr Alexi Chehadeh, who leads the Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East in Damascus, Syria. He is an impressive role model and peacemaker in Syria.

Many ecumenical pioneers, including former WCC general secretary Philip Potter, were in a sense a product of the Sunday School movement. Ulrich Becker tells a story that seems to be in danger of being forgotten.

In a sermon in the Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden on 4 November, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit remembered that, on 4 July 1968, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. should have entered the very same cathedral to preach at the opening service of the WCC Fourth Assembly.

At a Conference on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination on 22 October in Rome, Archbishop Emeritus Dr Anders Wejryd, current WCC president for Europe, spoke with a focus on the origins and solutions to discrimination based on religion and belief.

Ten weeks after Pope Francis visited the WCC in Geneva as “a pilgrim in quest of unity and peace,” church leaders of different churches representing the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church are meeting in Germany this week to continue their task of “walking, praying and working together.”