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In a 23 November letter to Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca urged the protection of religious and cultural monuments the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh region.

The WCC executive committee issued a statement calling for calm and wisdom following six weeks of intense fighting for Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, suspended by an agreement announced between the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. Welcoming an end to the bloodshed and destruction, the executive committee appealed for “a lasting peace founded on justice and human rights for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh and the wider region.”

World Council of Churches interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed deep concern about the violations of the humanitarian ceasefire agreed between Armenia and Azerbaijan on 10 October.

World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed grave concern over the renewed and very serious escalation of conflict in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region since Sunday 27 September – reportedly following an attack by Azerbaijan’s military forces – which has already resulted in dozens of casualties including civilians, and which risks provoking a wider armed conflict in the region.

In a 23 July statement, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia urged a peace resolution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, calling on both sides to enter into dialogue.

His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, visited Geneva on 12-13 October. Karekin II, a World Council of Churches (WCC) president, was attending the 2019 Swiss Red Cross Ball with the theme of “Brighten the Lives of our Elders.” The main purpose of the event was to support people with disabilities in Armenia.

Religions for Peace is the world's largest and most representative multi-religious coalition, and as in other multi-faith groups, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and its ecumenical family figure strongly in its leadership bodies.

Salpy Eskidjian Weiderud, leader of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, has received an International Religious Freedom Award from the US Department of State. The awards “honor extraordinary advocates of religious freedom from around the world” and will be presented on 17 July in Washington, D.C.

Participants in an international conference on “The Holy Scripture in a Changing World,” held in Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia from 27 September-1 October released a communiqué describing their experience and insights.

On 20 March the unique program aiming to empower Syrian-Armenian youth who escaped the ongoing conflict in Syria and settled in Armenia was launched in Yerevan. Through training, capacity building and joint activities, the project aims to deepen the relations between Syrian and local Armenian youth.

Before accepting the position of programme executive for the WCC Faith and Order Commission, Dr Ani Ghazaryan Drissi was involved with the WCC in several different ways.

Prayers for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan were offered on 4 April in the chapel of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. Joining in the Geneva service of common prayer were staff from ecumenical and other international organizations including the WCC and the LWF.

The Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe and the WCC have published a revised and updated edition of their joint study, Mapping Migration: Mapping Churches’ Responses in Europe. The 2016 text explores challenges and changes in the European church landscape in light of international migration.

Commemorating the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23 was to have been the principal focus of the service of Sunday morning prayer on 15 November in the cathedral church of Saint-Pierre at the summit of Geneva’s old town. Following terror attacks in Beirut and Paris killing and wounding hundreds of civilians over the preceding days, the prayers of the Protestant Church of Geneva and the WCC Executive Committee took on a new dimension.

General secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit of the WCC has offered congratulations to Bishop Hovakim Manukyan on being installed as the new primate of the diocese of the Armenian Church of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

In a recent ceremony in Bikfaya, Lebanon, the Armenian Church of the Holy Muron was blessed – symbolically anointing the 1.5 million martyrs of the Armenian Genocide. The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit gave an address at the event.

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.”

“Denial, impunity and the failure to remember such events encourage their repetition.” This warning was issued by the WCC Executive Committee in a public issues statement on the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. Meeting in Armenia at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the 20-member committee paid its respects to this year’s commemoration of the tragedy.