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In the new issue of International Review of Mission, a dozen authors from a variety of regional and confessional contexts explore the theme of the forthcoming world mission conference, to be held in Arusha, Tanzania, 8-13 March 2018.

He earned the title “Green Patriarch” as a religious leader addressing alarming environmental issues over at least two decades. In 2008, Time Magazine named His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as one of 100 Most Influential People in the World, for “defining environmentalism as spiritual responsibility”.

Father Emanuel Youkhana rues that, for the third Christmas in a row, the church bells will not ring in Mosul. He recounts that, around June 2014, the numerical religious minorities such as Yazidis and Christians around Iraq’s second biggest city began to face a horrific onslaught by the group calling itself IS (Islamic State), or Daesh in Arabic.

Analyzing efforts to protect religious communities and groups and build peace in Syria and Iraq, the WCC and Norwegian Church Aid presented a joint study on protection needs of religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq. The findings were announced on 12 December to the media and public at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Speaking in Bethlehem on the evening of 8 December, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit reflected on the light from the very first Christmas in the very same town, and what that light means in a global search for just peace.

Colleagues, friends, happy faces and a strong sense of fellowship was the theme, as a group of staff from the WCC, the Pilgrims for Justice and Peace, participated in the Escalade race in Geneva on 3 December.

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.

On 17-23 November, the Executive Committee of the WCC met for the first time ever in China. The visit was hosted by the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is a Protestant church in the People's Republic of China, as well as one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world.

The days from 25 November to 10 December have been set aside for a campaign called “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.”

Soundings in contemporary and historical ecumenical self-understanding form the substance of the double issue of The Ecumenical Review just released from Wiley Blackwell.

At the close of the 50th year since promulgation of Vatican II’s declaration on Christian relations with other religions, relations between Christians and Jews, and between Christians and Muslims, are freshly explored in the just-released issue of Current Dialogue.

The removal of the group calling itself Islamic State will not alone secure the return of displaced minority communities or their longer-term wellbeing in Iraq or Syria, a new report by The World Council of Churches (WCC) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) released today in Oslo has found.

Religion is often manipulated by groups who fuel divisions between people of different faiths, said Adama Dieng, special adviser of the UN secretary-general on the prevention of genocide at a 23-25 November Global Summit on Religion, Peace and Security.

By unveiling the engaging Reformation truck in the Plaine de Plainpalais park in Geneva, events marking the 500-year anniversary of the Reformation have been launched. Being regarded as a peace city, Geneva has been chosen as the first of 67 stops for the storymobile, full of testimonies and interactive experiences related to the Reformation.

Since November 2015 the task of representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the WCC in Geneva is in the hands of Archbishop Job of Telmessos, who is convinced: churches need not only to speak, but also to listen to each other. After a year in the office, Archbishop Job answered questions about the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, church unity, and the ecumenical movement.

Continuing the tradition of offering greetings to interreligious partners during festive seasons, the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit offered greetings to Hindu religious partners on the occasion of Diwali, a Hindu festival of lights.

Progress and current challenges in eliminating global statelessness were discussed during a public event at the UNHCR’s headquarters in Geneva on 27 October, marking the second anniversary of the global #IBelong campaign.

When the WCC joined the Blue Communities Project on 25 October, water and eco-justice advocates from around the world offered congratulations, while at the same time urging WCC member churches to join the quest for global water and sanitation rights.

A delegation from the WCC, led by WCC Central Committee moderator Dr Agnes Abuom, visited Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 21-22 October as an expression of solidarity to the member churches there. The delegation met with leaders of member churches, members of the Ethiopian interfaith council, and government representatives.