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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.

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.

It is time to revitalize the Asian ecumenical movement to respond to contemporary realities in Asia, according to Mathews George Chunakara, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia, in the article that opens the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the WCC.

After six intensive days, offering plenty of food for thought, the Asia Mission Conference (AMC) in Yangon, Myanmar, came to an end with a sending out and closing session last Monday. With around 600 participants from all over the world – double from what was originally expected – the need to discuss, learn about and elaborate around mission was clearly affirmed.

For Prof. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel, the Asia Mission Conference is a big celebration of ecumenism, with churches from Asia and all over the world coming together expressing the call of Jesus. As director of the Ecumenical Christian Centre in Bangalore, India, he appreciates the initiative to bring member churches, faith organizations and partners together to revive mission.

In a keynote speech in Yangon, Myanmar on Sunday, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit praised the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) for its longstanding commitment to ecumenism and mission, and its efforts to unite Christian churches on the continent.

The fourth Asia Mission Conference began yesterday in Yangon, Myanmar.

More than 500 participants from all over the world gathered this morning for the opening of the Asia Mission Conference in Yangon, Myanmar. The conference, the fourth of its kind since the founding of the Christian Conference of Asia in 1957, marks an important opportunity to bring together churches, faith-based organizations and partners to reflect upon mission in an Asian context. The conference is organized by CCA and hosted by the the Myanmar Council of Churches and Myanmar Baptist Convention, both CCA members.

When the Bossey Ecumenical Institute marked 70 years of formation, hundreds of current and former students, professors and friends gathered at the Château du Bossey to celebrate. Rev. Khaing Moh Moh was one of that band, but perhaps she travelled the furthest, from Myanmar, where she serves the Shan State Lisu Baptist Association about 200 kilometres north of Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city.

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.

Violence in the name of religion echoed in the distance, demanding a response, through the November 2015 meeting of the 25-member Executive Committee of the WCC in Bogis-Bossey and nearby Geneva, Switzerland as it planned the work of the Council in the coming years.

Deeply concerned for migrants in many regions, especially those “driven to undertake journeys of desperate risk and danger”, the WCC Executive Committee has declared: “All members of the international community have a moral and legal duty to save the lives of those in jeopardy at sea or in transit, regardless of their origin and status.”

Young ecumenical leaders from Asia have met in Siam Reap, Cambodia to examine how religious traditions can offer resources to overcome religious violence in a changing Asian context.