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In a first-ever online visit to the World Council of Churches (WCC), members of the Focolare Movement gathered on 14 January in place of what, until COVID-19 prevented it, has annually been a joyful in-person gathering.

In a 23 November letter to Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca urged the protection of religious and cultural monuments the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh region.

The WCC executive committee issued a statement calling for calm and wisdom following six weeks of intense fighting for Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, suspended by an agreement announced between the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. Welcoming an end to the bloodshed and destruction, the executive committee appealed for “a lasting peace founded on justice and human rights for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh and the wider region.”

“The unbearable toll of lives lost, and the impact on the affected communities and nations, must engage the concern, solidarity and action of the international community and all people of goodwill, to stem the bloodshed and to confront the brutal ideologies behind such atrocities,” wrote Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, interim general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), on 3 November, as he commented on the violent extremist attacks in western Ethiopia, Kabul and Vienna.

Upon the 20th anniversary of the UN Resolution 1325, the question is still being answered as to whether women’s important work in peace and security is getting the visibility it deserves.

World Council of Churches interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed deep concern about the violations of the humanitarian ceasefire agreed between Armenia and Azerbaijan on 10 October.

World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed grave concern over the renewed and very serious escalation of conflict in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region since Sunday 27 September – reportedly following an attack by Azerbaijan’s military forces – which has already resulted in dozens of casualties including civilians, and which risks provoking a wider armed conflict in the region.

In a 23 July statement, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia urged a peace resolution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, calling on both sides to enter into dialogue.

A Joint Ecumenical Peace Message for the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War was publicly delivered on 22 June during a live-streamed event. Co-sponsored by churches and councils of churches around the world, especially from countries that participated in the Korean War, the message describes the Korean War as an “appallingly destructive conflict” after which no peace treaty was ever concluded.

For many decades, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has worked to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. From bringing people from both sides of the divided country together, to building an international ecumenical network to support them, the WCC has a history of formulating and promoting a vision for peace.

As of 4 May 2020, the WCC Annual Review 2019 is available for download online. The annual review records many of the WCC’s activities undertaken in 2019 and continuing into 2020.

Seventy-five years ago, on 9 April 1945, the German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, with six other members of the conspiracy to overthrow Adolf Hitler, was hanged at Flossenbürg execution camp in Germany. He was 39.

In an online prayer service on 1 April, the World Council of Churches (WCC) bid an official farewell to its outgoing general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, who will take a new role as presiding bishop of the Church of Norway.

After more than ten years heading the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit says this is the time that "we should remind one another that we believe in God as the “Good shepherd” who promised to be with us also in times of crisis,” especially in this time of the global COVID-19 crisis.

The South African Council of Churches is calling on the De Klerk Foundation to retract and apologize in the wake of a 14 February statement issued by the foundation amplifying the position that apartheid was not a crime against humanity, but a Soviet propaganda ploy.

The WCC has welcomed four new programme executives.

On 30 January, the Church Council of the Church of Norway appointed World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit as the new presiding bishop for the Church of Norway.

In a speech before the annual assembly of the Protestant Federation of France, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit reflected on the questions: Where does the ecumenical movement stand today and where should the WCC take in it in the future?