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The world faces a global crisis on food exacerbated and brought to the fore by the war in Ukraine, but humanity can and must take remedial steps in economic and climate justice, a World Council of Churches-led meeting has heard.

The 5th Ecumenical Pilgrimage for Climate Justice from Poland to Glasgow crossed the English Channel from IJmuiden in the Netherlands to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England on 11 October. They were given a warm welcome on site. 

As wildfires continue to rage in Greece, the USA, Albania, and Russia, the World Council of Churches (WCC) reached out in solidarity to churches and communities that continue to be evacuated as well as those who have lost everything. 

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.

Social media was awash with messages of love on Valentine’s Day, but from Thursdays in Black supporters, the flowers came with strong messages that love is not violent.

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is visiting Iceland from 12-15 October, invited by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, the WCC and the Arctic Circle. The Ecumenical Patriarch will deliver a keynote speech at the Arctic Circle Assembly under the title Just Peace with Earth on 13 October, then preside over a Divine Liturgy in the Hallgrímskirkja cathedral in Reykjavík and attend an ecumenical service on 15 October.

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.

Father Mikhail Gundyaev grew up in St Petersburg at a time the city was known as Leningrad and when religion was still frowned upon in the then Soviet Union, so studying at Bossey in 1994 and 1995 opened new horizons for him. “It was a valuable and precious experience to meet people from different churches and from many different cultures,” said Gundyaev. “I saw people from Africa who had never seen someone from the Orthodox Church.”

As the Bossey Ecumenical Institute marks 70 years of ecumenical formation, hundreds of current and former students, professors, partners and friends have gathered at the Château du Bossey for days highlighting the work of the institute and the role it has had and continues to play in the ecumenical movement.

The WCC says it is grateful that the churches of the Union of Utrecht, the Philippine Independent Church, and the Episcopal Church have embarked on a study about Globalization and Catholicity.

In a call to celebrate Time for Creation, Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, encouraged the churches to pay attention to the “human interventions impacting the ecological balance”.