The World Council of Churches (WCC) sent a message with prayers and hope to the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. “As you know the WCC is a fellowship of churches that seeks the unity of Christians in the world,” wrote WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay.
A Zoom panel on 30 January 2022 recalled the witness of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) and to celebrate the publication of a new book, Ecumenical Encounters with Desmond Mpilo Tutu, honouring his life and work and presented to him on his 90th birthday.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, one of South Africa's most famous persons, has turned 90 with a Eucharist service celebration at Cape Town's St George's Cathedral, receiving an outpouring of love from around the world. Tutu made a rare public appearance on 7 October at the iconic Cape Town cathedral, the site of prayers and protests during the apartheid era, where he attended a special thanksgiving service.
The South African Council of Churches, in a 15 July statement, called for supporting a campaign of restoration and addressing the root causes of the unrest that is happening simultaneously with a third wave of COVID-19.
Rev. Canon Dr Emily Awino Onyango, a Kenyan woman theologian, was consecrated on 27 March as the assistant bishop of the Bondo Anglican Diocese, making her the first woman to hold such a post in the church in east-central Africa.
South African church leaders heard that corruption in their country kills when they organized for a campaign against the latest version of pillaging during the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic.
On 15 September, the South African Council of Churches will stand in silent prayer in all nine provinces to declare that “Corruption is Not Our Heritage.”
An online memorial service for Rev. Prof. Dr Mary-Anne Plaatjies-van Huffel drew family members, friends, colleagues and students who mourned the passing of the World Council of Churches (WCC) president for Africa. Plaatjies van Huffel, known as a transformative church leader in sub-Saharan Africa, passed away on 19 May.
More than 70 African ecumenical leaders will take part in training seminars for diakonia and development, improving human resource development capacities of churches across all regions of the continent.
Church representatives at a recent Oikotree Global Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa stressed the need to support peoples' movements promoting justice in the economy and ecology, a concern, they say, that lies at the heart of the faith.