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Sitting in a tent at the Souda camp, on the island of Chios in Greece, a Pakistani family of 12 recalls the lives they had in their home country. They had everything except safety. Muhammed and his wife, Asia, along with their 10 children, fled their home country in search of a place where they weren’t constantly fearing for their lives.

Thank you for your interest in covering the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church 19-26 June, 2016, in Crete, Greece. Applications for press accreditation will begin on 24 May 2016 and will be processed online only through www.holycouncil.org. The final date for submitting your application is 6 June.

Women and children figure prominently as refugees in mass movements of people in recent months and their rights will be at the forefront of a summer school organized in Greece by the Conference of European Churches.

The Evangelical Church of Greece has been helping immigrants for more than 20 years, but has grown its effort to unprecedented levels in the past few years, months and even every day.

Following the EU-Turkey refugee agreement, effective 20 March 2016, the Greek islands are again a changed place. Where refugees have arrived in great numbers in the past years, and where they have engaged a whole community of local, national and international aid workers and volunteers, the situation is now dramatically different.

Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece met on the Greek island of Lesvos on 16 April to demonstrate their concern for the situation of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers who have come to Europe fleeing from situations of conflict and, in many cases, daily threats to their survival.

The heads of two German Protestant churches and the moderator of the country’s Reformed Alliance say the situation for refugees on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is intolerable and more European aid is needed.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidis from Greece met with WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit on 8 April 2016. Amanatidis expressed the Greek government’s warm thanks for the WCC’s cooperation and solidarity with Greece, and requested continued support for Greece’s efforts to face an unprecedented refugee crisis.

“An ecological reformation of Christianity is a matter of repentance, conversion and renewal for all Christian traditions,” reads the “Volos Call,” a statement issued after a meeting of church representatives from different traditions and all continents, held in Greece, between 10-13 March.

Greece’s people are exhausted from years of economic crisis and the Orthodox church head there is pleading with the European Union to reconsider its decision to limit the refugees it is accepting.

The Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe, Conference of European Churches and World Council of Churches sent a letter to member churches and partner organizations in Europe urging them to undertake increased advocacy for more refugee resettlement with their national governments and parliaments in the next weeks.

Almost forty years after the advent of HIV and AIDS, people around the world living with HIV still endure assaults on their dignity and basic human rights—from stigma and discrimination to denial of legal protection and even medical care.

For WCC Central Committee member Sonia Tziovanni, youth employment is an issue of the times at her home in Cyprus and everywhere on the planet.

Ecotheology, Climate Justice and Food Security was the focus for lively discussion at a consultation event hosted by the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, in Greece on 10-13 March.

Following the international World Council of Churches (WCC)/United Nations Conference on the Refugee Crisis in Europe, hosted by WCC in mid-January, Deputy Minister Ioannis Amanatidis, from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visited the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 2 March.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens is caring for the nutritional and clothing needs of refugees and migrants hosted at the identification and registration centre on the Greek island of Samos.

“We should be learning from our mistakes, and exposing the systems that are not performing well,” says Pauliina Parhiala, director and chief operating officer of the ACT Alliance, a coalition of 137 churches and faith-based organizations serving internationally in humanitarian, advocacy and development work.

Participants in a recent conference on the refugee crisis in Europe, hosted by the WCC, said they felt energized by the reports from a multitude of activities undertaken by churches from Lebanon to Finland through Serbia, Greece and Germany.

“The way we handle the refugee crisis, not least the settling in and integration process, will be of utmost significance, both for the attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers in the future, and for the long-term stability and sustainability of our own societies”, said Knut Vollebaek, ambassador and former Norwegian foreign minister, in his speech at the recent WCC/UN conference on Europe’s refugee crisis.

The Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church will hold a joint ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation on 31 October in Lund, Sweden.