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Linked to the 34th session of the Human Rights Council, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue organized a side event on 15 March exploring "Islam and Christianity, the Great Convergence: Working jointly towards equal citizenship rights". World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit was among the panellists.

The fifteenth of March 2017, marks the sixth year since the start of the Syrian war.
Lebanon, being a small Middle Eastern country facing constant political and national unity challenges with a population of approximately 450,000 Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, has been the shelter for more than 2 million registered Syrian refugees since 2011.

Religious leaders in Cyprus stood together against violence towards women and girls, releasing a first-ever official joint statement on 8 March to mark International Women’s Day.

How will Christmas 2016 be in the Middle East? Two Christians, one refugee mother in Lebanon and one pastor in Qamishli in northeast Syria, tell how difficult the message of Jesus’ birth becomes in times of war and unrest.

The ecumenical dialogue between churches has a long and fruitful history. But since war and terrorism are threatening the existence of churches in the Middle East, Christians of this region feel more and more neglected by their Western partners.

As part of an ongoing, multiyear project called “Walking Together,” an international and interreligious group met in Nicosia, Cyprus, from 6-8 December to explore different facets of the theme “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace,” which undergirds the World Council of Church’s programmatic focus.

The story shared by Fr Yakoub Babawe of the Oum-El-Nour Relief Committee of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Iraq’s city of Erbil moved and challenged participants at a recent meeting in Beirut.

The WCC convened an inter-Orthodox consultation in Cyprus on 6-13 October to respond to the text “The Church: Towards a Common Vision,” a convergence document presented by the WCC Faith and Order Commission.

The latest edition of the quarterly WCC journal features a discussion of the roots of religion and violence in the Middle East. Five presentations drawn from three WCC-sponsored conferences of recent years explore aspects of the religious concepts of “promised land,” the “theology of land” and how to go about “reading the Hebrew Bible in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

What does the impending 500th anniversary mean outside its European birthplace? In the Middle East, Reformation stands for a strong legacy yet also the uncertain future of a tiny and splintered minority. The churches of the Reformation remain important within the constellation of Christian groups, say non-evangelical Christians, who call upon them to lead in ecumenical outreach to newer charismatic and Pentecostal groups.

Facilitating peace requires conviction, political independence and endurance. Add a whole lot of passion and native Cypriot Salpy Eskidjian fits perfectly into that job description. Since she started in 2011 as executive coordinator of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, which is operating under the auspices of the Embassy of Sweden in Nicosia, she has tirelessly – and successfully – sought to engage religious leaders in a dialogue for peace.

Tarek Mitri knows that his identity as a Christian affects what people expect of him. The Lebanese academic, whose career has spanned politics, diplomacy and a stint on the staff of the World Council of Churches, has learned to handle reactions from people who have set ideas about what he will, and should, say on public issues.

The situation in the Middle East presents steep challenges for Christian service (diakonia) and advocacy. From the refugee crisis to persecution of Christians, Middle East churches face multiple hurdles in implementing diaconal services, which stress accompaniment and advocacy informed by learning from the margins, transforming not only the situations on the ground but also the actors involved.

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 value of dialogue among religious leaders in Cyprus goes beyond its shores and can become a model for the Middle East and other regions, said Greek Orthodox Bishop Porfyrios of Neapolis and Turkish mufti Dr Talip Atalay.

“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 first of what will be 1,000 refugees from camps in Lebanon, Morocco and Ethiopia are arriving this month in Italy through a “Humanitarian Corridors” project organized by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy, the Sant’ Egidio religious community and the Italian government.

While news headlines continue to document tragedies on land and sea as desperate people flee violence and abject poverty in their homelands, representatives of governments, UN agencies and civil society organizations, including churches and faith-based organizations, met 18-19 January at a high-level conference on the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe, hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, Switzerland.