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The World Council of Churches (WCC) welcomed and celebrated the award of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the UN World Food Programme. “We express our gratitude and congratulations to the leadership and each staff member of the World Food Programme,” said Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, WCC interim general secretary. “This vital multilateral organisation comprises many dedicated people, working in the remotest and most vulnerable regions of the world, affected by conflict, climate catastrophe and economic crises.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is inviting all people of good will to attend an online prayer service on 16 October, World Food Day at 4:30 p.m. (CET).

Churches around the world will be observing Churches' Week of Action on Food from 11-17 October as hunger is a stark reality for 26.4 percent of the world’s population. The theme of the World Food Day, which falls on 16 October this year, is “Grow, Nourish, Sustain Together.”

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.

Moving forward amid the COVID-19 pandemic, seven students were able to attend a one-month course at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, from 3 August to 2 September, to strengthen their English-speaking skills. The short course was designed to help them succeed in their upcoming post-graduate ecumenical studies.

Alumni from the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute Bossey who live in Thailand are continuing to foster ecumenical activities and relations. Every year for a decade, they have offered a local orientation for new students from Thailand who are headed to Bossey.

A 28 July World Council of Churches (WCC) webinar entitled "Reconnecting in faith with creation, land and water” explored the ways in which we tie our faith to living responsibly on earth. Participants explored together why and how a sustainable future must be based on the interdependency of the whole creation, not an anthropocentric understanding in which human beings are the dominant species.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey is mourning the passing of Anglican Bishop Desire Mukanirwa, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

African Church leaders are highlighting the need to tame the continent’s persistent post-harvest losses, as organizations point at rising food insecurity due to the coronavirus pandemic.

On 17 June, six new master students finished their yearlong studies with the graduation ceremony of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey. WCC News met with them at the graduation.

On 17 June, six new master students finished their yearlong studies with the graduation ceremony of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey.

South Sudan church leaders are among African clerics who are highlighting a painful “hunger pandemic” in their countries, as experts warn of aggravated food insecurity in regions due to coronavirus.

Fr James Oyet Latansio, general secretary of the South Sudan Council of Churches, said the disease had devastated families, creating a “triple pandemic” including COVID-19, gender-based violence and severe hunger.

During a graduation webcast, students from the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Institute Bossey described what it was like to live for ten months or more in an environment like no other. As they receive their post-graduate degrees in ecumenical studies, they look back fondly on their sense of community, professors—and even the food.

When asked on the day of her graduation how she would describe Bossey, former student Quantisha Mason replied, ’Bossey is like a love letter to God.’ Now, the Ecumenical Institute invites prospective students to apply for the study year of 2021-2022.

Former Bossey student Rev. Jianmei Jing who works at the Jingling Protestant Church in Hongkou near Shanghai in China has shown that masking your intention can be a truly Christian act. At significant sacrifice during the current COVID-19 pandemic when they were in short supply, she managed to get hold of 300 face masks and sent them to the Bossey community who she knew needed them in Switzerland.

As the UN warns that the coronavirus pandemic is pushing millions to the brink if starvation in a “widespread famine of biblical proportions,” a senior Christian leader in Africa has emphasised that it is possible to beat hunger, a yoke that enslaves many in the continent.

It is with deep sadness that the global ecumenical movement marks the passing away of Martin Khor Kok Peng on 1 April. An economist trained at Cambridge University and the University Sains Malaysia, Martin Khor had led the civil society movement in Malaysia and internationally for decades, on issues of economic, ecological and health justice, founding and leading several key organisations and mentoring various leaders around the world.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to require the world to protect its most vulnerable people, the reality of undernourishment faces more than 820 million people in the world. This increases vulnerability in our one human family. Dr Manoj Kurian, coordinator of the WCC Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, reflects on the current state of food security.

Recent calls for increased action against hunger by church leaders, faith-based humanitarian agencies and development leaders are finding significance as a new report warns of serious levels of under-nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa.

As the World Council of Churches prepares for its 11th Assembly in 2021, a special “virtual” issue of the WCC’s journal International Review of Mission is now available online presenting a set of 12 articles published following the WCC’s previous assembly in 2013 in Busan, Republic of Korea.