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Religious leaders and faith-based organizations have released a call to prayer as people in Africa continue to face the COVID-19 pandemic.

The WCC fellowship joins the family and friends of Prof. John Samuel Pobee in celebrating his life and ministry and grieving his death on 22 January.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) offers its congratulations to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2019. Since his election as Prime Minister in April 2018, Mr Ahmed has championed an impressive programme of positive and inspiring reform initiatives, and played a decisive role in the reconciliation of the two synods and fostered unity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The achievement which this award particularly recognizes is his leadership in bringing an formal end to the twenty-year long fratricidal conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Ethiopians have celebrated the annual festival of the Meskel (which means “cross” in Amharic), marking the finding of the “true cross” on which Jesus Christ was supposedly crucified. The festival is one of the major religious celebrations of the Orthodox Church in the Horn of Africa country. The main national feast - which occurs on 27 or 28 September - is held at Meskel Square in the capital Addis Abba.

Dr. Nigussu Legesse shared in the joy a year ago when the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church declared an end to a 27-year-old schism that had torn it apart. That rapprochement set in motion a series of events that are taking him back to his homeland.
Legesse was then World Council of Churches (WCC) programme executive and convener for Africa.
After more than 10 years at the council, he is moving back to Addis Ababa as executive director of the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Associations.

The WCC’s executive committee has welcomed recent reconciliations in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In a statement issued from its 2-8 November meeting in Uppsala, Sweden, the committee also invited further support from member churches for further efforts there.

A delegation from the Evangelical Church in Germany is visiting the WCC on 26-27 October for an ecumenical learning experience that includes prayers with students from the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, an introduction and overview of the work of the WCC, a meeting with the Lutheran World Federation, and a guided tour of the Ecumenical Centre.

Maryland-based, Ghanaian-born Rev. Dr Casely Essamuah was in February selected as secretary of the Global Christian Forum. Originally ordained in the Methodist Church in Ghana, he began his work officially in July. This week he made a study visit to the WCC and the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva and the WCC was able to converse with him.

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

In a letter addressed to the prime minister of Ethiopia Dr Abiy Ahmed, on 13 August, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), conveyed heartfelt congratulations in the decisive role played by Ahmed to ensure the reconciliation of the two synods and unity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church after 27 years of separation.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Christian Churches, one of Christianity’s oldest and has been in Africa since 330 AD, so there was joy and celebrations when on 27 July it declared an end to a 27-year-old schism that had torn it apart.

This week world leaders are gathered in Davos under the very theme of “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”. They do so at a time when we see poverty amongst plenty; hunger and thirst in the midst of abundance; shocking disparities in the quality of life between neighboring communities: real problems that the world has the potential and the possibilities to resolve.

A global consultation on “Call to Mission, Perceptions of Proselytism” in Accra, Ghana on 8-11 June provided a forum for some 30 theologians and church leaders to explore what proselytism means and how it affects a wide range of Christian traditions.

“We’ve seen in the case of refugees, how the church takes a strong standpoint in welcoming those who have fled. But it isn’t always so easy in the congregations. There are many who feel fear, as we receive not only refugees but sometimes also people of other faiths. In this case, we can see a gap between what the church says, and what is actually lived.”

With a prayer service on Ash Wednesday in Sealite Mihret Orthodox cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the WCC's Ecumenical Water Network began its annual Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water”. This year during Lent it will raise awareness of water justice issues in Africa.

The 54th meeting of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) began today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, marking its yearly regional focus on Africa. During the meeting CCIA members are discussing the commission’s previous work and its outcomes focusing on Middle East, as well as setting strategic directions for activities until 2021.

“The peace message must be delivered to all the stakeholders, including the opposition," urged Adama Dieng, United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, during opening remarks at a consultation of church leaders from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi opened in Addis Ababa on 23 February.

Patriarch Abune Matthias of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church offered a special greeting at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 10 February, commending the success of global ecumenical work while acknowledging the grave crises tearing the world apart.

The World Council of Churches welcomes His Holiness Abune Matthias I, Patriarch of Ethiopia, Archbishop of Axum, Echegue of the See of St. Teklehaimanot, at his first official visit to the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. We are pleased to invite you to participate at this event of historic significance to the ecumenical movement.