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Armenian people and churches urgently need “a generous international response to the humanitarian needs of the refugees who fled from Nagorno-Karabakh, especially vulnerable women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, and those without any other means of support,” the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee stated during its meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. 

In a letter to the European Union, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Conference of European Churches express grave concern for the situation in the Caucasus related to the exodus of almost the entire ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

A World Council of Churches delegation led by general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay has concluded its visit to Armenia after “witnessing dramatic events”.

A World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation nearly reached the Lachin corridor on 19 September, the same day Azerbaijan launched attacks against Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) region.

A World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation will visit the Armenian Apostolic Church on 18-22 September. The visit will include an audience with His Holiness Karekin II, the Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians.

Speaking through reflections and a sermon during an international peace gathering in Berlin, World Council of Churches moderator Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm reflected on how people of faith can work to overcome suffering in a wounded world.

Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, spoke on a nuclear weapons-free world during “The Audacity of Peace” gathering in Berlin.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay shared reflections during a “People of Peace” gathering in Berlin.

On 28th August, during a visit with Ambassador Andranik Hovhannisyan, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Armenia to the UN Office, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed solidarity with those making efforts to lift the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by reopening the Lachin corridor.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is calling on Azerbaijan for the immediate lifting of the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, as more than 120,000 people—including 30,000 children—are suffering under an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.

World Council of Churches central committee moderator Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm delivered a lecture at the Kitzingen deanery, a regional church district near Würzburg, for the parishes of the deanery as well as for the public. The lecture, entitled “Just Peace through Military Force? Peace Ethical Considerations in Light of the War of Aggression against Ukraine,” was offered on 29 April

In a letter to H.E. Zbigniew Rau, OSCE chairman-in-office, and minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca and Dr Jørgen Skov Sørensen, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, jointly appeal for urgent action by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to promote a just and sustainable peace in the Caucasus, following renewed violence in the region in which more than 100 lives have already been lost.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) 11th Assembly released a minute entitled “Consequences of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war,” in which it reiterated its condemnation of the use of chemical weapons and cluster munitions, the targeting of civilians, hospitals and public infrastructure, and all other war crimes, beheadings, torture and other atrocities witnessed during the conflict.

Recognizing the deep need for, “renewed dialogue within the ecumenical movement,” the WCC 11th Assembly released a statement “strongly affirming the commitment of the WCC and its member churches to peace making through inter-religious dialogue and cooperation at all levels,” and calling for a global ceasefire in all armed conflicts around the world.