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In pastoral letters to His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew, His Beatitude Hieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, and the Evangelical Church of Greece, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay conveyed sincere sympathies as wildfires raged across the land.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay shared greetings to the Conference of European Churches 16th General Assembly, taking place in Tallinn, Estonia under the theme “Under God’s blessing – shaping the future.” 

World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca extended warm congratulations to Rev. Anne Burghardt, who will serve as the new general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The election of Rev. Anne Burghardt marks  the first woman and the first Central and Eastern European pastor to head the LWF.

Rev. Fr Dr Lawrence Iwuamadi is dean of the Ecumenical Institute, the graduate school which opened its academic year this week. Below, Iwuamadi reflects on the arrival of new students at the Ecumenical Institute during this remarkable time.

The world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter on 19 April, carrying forth time-honored traditions even in difficult times.

Archbishop Job of Telmessos, who serves as permanent representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the World Council of Churches (WCC), met with the WCC News and describes receiving an extraordinary gift from Pope Francis on 29 June.

At WCC’s ecumenical workcamps in the late 1950s, a young Govaert Chr.Kok of the Netherlands would learn lessons for life – and encounter a very special person.

The Theological Faculty of Aristoteleion University in Thessaloniki organized an international colloquium on 19-20 April to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) as well as the 70th anniversary of the election of Patriarch Athenagoras as head of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

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.

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.

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.

The Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe and the WCC have published a revised and updated edition of their joint study, Mapping Migration: Mapping Churches’ Responses in Europe. The 2016 text explores challenges and changes in the European church landscape in light of international migration.

Churches in Europe have a crucial role to play in responding to the arrival of refugees in Europe, Germany's interior minister has told a gathering in Geneva of governments, United Nations agencies, church and faith groups and civil society organizations.

Renowned for his friendly attitude and his inspiring speeches, nothing seems impossible for this man. He has faced a multitude of difficulties including severe illness and persecution. At age 62, he committed to rebuild the church in the only officially declared atheist state.

An international conference held at the invitation of the Foreign Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Nikos Kotzias, has gathered around 70 prominent religious, political and academic figures in Athens, Greece, this week.

It is raining. It is cold and windy. Autumn is in the air in northern Greece. We have just arrived at the Idomeni refugee camp in northern Greece, on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The fast-approaching winter poses as great a threat to the refugees as do the smugglers. In the worst case, winter means death.

To achieve just peace in the Middle East, “it is very adequate to focus on what would maintain and reinforce the cultural and religious diversity that has distinguished this region for long centuries,” said the WCC general secretary.