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Members of Bread for the World’s Pan African Young Adult Network embarked on a pilgrimage to Jamestown, Virginia (USA) on 23-25 August to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved African peoples in 1619.

Bread for the World is releasing a publication entitled “Lament and Hope: A Pan-African Devotional Guide Commemorating the 2019 Quad-Centennial of the Forced Transatlantic Voyage of Enslaved African Peoples to Jamestown, Virginia (USA).”

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.

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.

What else could your family, your parish, your community do to respond to the needs of migrants and refugees arriving in your country? Representatives of many different churches met in Rome in September to discuss that practical question, as well as respond to the broader challenge of how people of faith can combat the rising tide of racism, xenophobia and nationalist policies that increasingly target vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers.

Representatives of the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) engaged in a series of meetings last week in New York, accompanied by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to inform UN member states and agencies about the current crisis and to advocate for a pathway towards peace.

An ecumenical gathering and an Orthodox Holy Week liturgy on Tuesday evening, 3 April, kicked off three days of US church engagement with the persistent realities of racism in American life.

At a “Hearing on Racism, Discrimination, Afrophobia and Xenophobia” held at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 25 September, speakers reflected, lamented and, at times, simply sat in silence as they considered the experience of people of African descent in the USA.

On Saturday in Charlottesville, one woman died and 19 others were injured when a man who, after rallying with white supremacist groups, rammed his car into a crowd. Earlier in the day, two law enforcement officers lost their lives when their helicopter crashed as they patrolled the building crowds.

The first ever action plan specifically designed to enable religious leaders to prevent incitement to violence - the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes - was launched on 14 July by Secretary-General António Guterres at a meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Friday evening when the leaders of the G20 states will be meeting in Hamburg and discussing global economic, social, environmental and political issues, the churches in Germany are inviting people in Germany and all over the world to a common peace prayer.

On 15 March, during the 61st session of the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Ecumenical Women (EW) organized a public witness event at the Tillman Chapel at the Church Center of the UN (CCUN) to mobilize faith communities and civil society to work in solidarity to end gender-based violence.

Encouragement, inspiration and storytelling animated the plenary discussion of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace.

Knut Refsdal started his pilgrimage from the Norwegian capital Oslo to the historic pilgrim town of Trondheim on 24 May. He is scheduled to arrive on the eve of the opening of the meeting of the WCC Central Committee on 21 June.

“We had heard that racism continues to be an issue in the United States,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee. “But we did not expect to find it so deep, so wide and so pervasive.”

To promote open discussions on the theological and practical discourse, narrative and experiences on implications for the work of the multi-religious organizations on religion, violence and extremism, the WCC, along with the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church and the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists held a Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-Based Organizations in International Affairs.

Seventy years after nuclear fireballs exploded over two Japanese cities, an ecumenical group of pilgrims has come to Hiroshima to listen to those who survived and renew the struggle against their own countries’ continued reliance on nuclear weapons.

Ferguson is in turmoil. So is New York. And so is Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, a long-standing institution of theological education located on the upper west side of Manhattan – or in West Harlem – since 1836.