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“They have arrived with their few belongings, full of fear and hope,” observes Dr Paolo Naso, as he watches 93 Syrian immigrants — 41 of them children — step off a plane that came from Beirut on 29 February.

Following the international World Council of Churches (WCC)/United Nations Conference on the Refugee Crisis in Europe, hosted by WCC in mid-January, Deputy Minister Ioannis Amanatidis, from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visited the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 2 March.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens is caring for the nutritional and clothing needs of refugees and migrants hosted at the identification and registration centre on the Greek island of Samos.

Amidst the current tense situation in Burundi, representatives of the World Council of Churches and the All Africa Conference of Churches have embarked on a solidarity visit to Burundi from 1 to 4 March.

Pope Francis was presented two publications of the World Council of Churches on 24 February, at the close of a papal audience in the Vatican attended by members of the WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME).

Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches in Aotearoa New Zealand are forming an ecumenical entity to pursue closer ties and share understandings.

The Greek island of Lesbos is one of the first landing points in Europe for refugees and migrants fleeing conflicts. Many of them rely on smugglers to brave the treacherous Mediterranean in search of a better life.

A World Mission Conference, hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, is being planned for 2018, reported the executive group of the World Council of Church’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.

When Fernando Enns thinks of water in a German context, he is reminded of thousands and thousands of refugees who have come to the country fleeing the conflict in Syria.

A German alliance of diverse faith-based and civil-society groups has encouraged humanitarian response to refugees in Europe.

“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.

Representatives of different Christian traditions will analyze the challenges to mission in secularized contexts during a seminar 22-26 February in Hungary.

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.

In an age of religious pluralism and of religious justification of all manner of atrocities, how do religious communities contribute authentically to the public good?

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 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.

Members of a small congregation in Toronto, Canada are celebrating. On Sunday the member of parliament for their riding came to the church to announce that the federal government has granted residency status to a Roma family that had lived under “sanctuary” protection in the church for 18 months.

Attending the World Council of Churches/United Nations high-level conference on the refugee crisis in Europe on 18-19 January, executive secretary for theology of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) Dr Douwe Visser was interviewed by the WCC to share his views on the refugee situation from the perspective of the WCRC.

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.

The recent and ongoing flood of migrants and refugees in transit to Europe is testing not only Europe’s physical borders but its legal, security and diplomatic boundaries as well.