Search results

Churches from the Pacific Islands and across the world continued to voice their prayers of support and care as Tonga copes with the aftermath of the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano on 14 January, which triggered 15-metre tsunami waves that hit the archipelago.

World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca extended prayers and condolences to people in Tonga, and the churches and rescue workers helping them, in the wake of a massive volcanic eruption smothered the Pacific islands in ash, cut power and severed communications.

Anglican bishops across the world have signed a petition calling for an immediate halt to oil drilling in the Kavango Basin, Namibia, by Canadian Company ReConAfrica.

The fourth edition of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Eco-School on Water, Food and Climate Justice will be held 18-24 January 2021 in the Pacific region in five countries (Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Tuvalu & Solomon Islands).

The Thursdays in Black campaign for a world free from rape and violence has been intensified in Namibia, bringing awareness of the heightened risk of violence against women and children during the COVID-19 lockdown.

In a letter of solidarity to church leaders in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga and the Pacific, World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Fr Ioan Sauca expressed sadness and concern over the recent devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Harold.

Taking into consideration the growing global concerns and implications of the current spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus), the World Council of Churches (WCC) will postpone its annual Ecumenical Continuing Formation on Youth seminar in the Pacific to the end of the year 2020, with a date to be announced. The event was scheduled for June 2020 in Tonga.
The WCC is taking steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including cancelling or postponing certain meetings and limiting travels.

Applications are open to young people for participation in a June 2020 World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Continuing Formation seminar. To be held in Tonga, the seminar will focus on transformative masculinity and femininity.

The deadline for applications is 20 March.

In 2018 we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches. In order to create a lively firsthand account of the ecumenical fellowship and of our shared journey, member churches have contributed stories of people, events, achievements and even failures, all of which have deepened our collective search for Christian unity. This story was written by Olle Eriksson, a Namibian who worked for 35 years (1968 – 2003) with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission and Lutheran World Federation.

“You are the first. You are the first among all the member churches of the World Council of Churches around the world to greet the dawn of every new day and to praise God,” said World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in a sermon delivered 6 August at the Centenary Chapel of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Nuku’alofa.

As the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) gathered for its 12th Assembly in Windhoek, Namibia from 10-16 May, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit presented greetings on behalf of the World Council of Churches, a worldwide fellowship of 348 member churches which represents more than half a billion Christians around the world.

Almost 800 participants, including 324 delegates, are gathering in Windhoek from 10-16 May for the Twelfth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), the highest LWF decision-making body that meets every six years. World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit will address the plenary on 12 May.

The first of a series of 12 monthly Bible studies inspired by themes related to the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace is now available online on the website of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

“Statelessness renders people’s vulnerability to abuse and to denial of their rights invisible to national authorities. In this sense the right to a nationality is a threshold issue for access to protection of all other human rights - almost a 'right to have rights'”, said Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), following a regional training workshop on birth registration and gender discriminatory nationality laws in Africa, organized by the WCC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11–13 May.

In Tonga there is lot of water to see, but not necessarily a lot for people to use. Mele’ana Puloka, a member of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga, is World Council of Churches president for the Pacific, living on the islands that have a population of about 106,000.

Two major crises have marked the months since the WCC called Katalina Tahaafe-Williams to work in Geneva on its migration, indigenous, and multicultural ministry programmes. When she took up the job in October, the European refugee crisis was in full flow. Then in November, terrorists attacked Paris.

The WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, offered condolences on the death of Fr Siketi Tonga, general secretary of the Tonga National Council of Churches. A priest with the Anglican Church, Tonga passed away last week and was laid to rest in Nuku’alofa on Saturday, 12 April.

The 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches elected eight new presidents today during a closed session at its proceedings in Busan, Republic of Korea.

A long time academic and professor of missiology at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, Dr Paul J. Isaak has been appointed as director of elections by President Hifikepunye Pohamba in Namibia. Isaak commenced his new position at the Electoral Commission of Namibia in September.