Search results

Upon her first visit to Iraq, Antje Jackelén, archbishop of the Church of Sweden, had the same questions as many others across the world: “What’s really happening? What can we do to help our Christian brothers and sisters? What can we do to also assist other communities under huge pressure?”

The World Council of Churches - Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance applauds the first licensing agreement related to tuberculosis, announced on 25 January by the Medicines Patent Pool and Johns Hopkins University. The agreement will facilitate the clinical development of sutezolid, a tuberculosis drug candidate. The antibiotic sutezolid, in combination with other drugs, could be used to more effectively treat drug-sensitive and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

If the worsening global inequality highlighted recently is to be tackled, world leadership must act “now”, in tangible ways, says World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, participating in the 2017 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland this week.

While participating in the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland from 17-20 January, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit urged the world’s leaders to be accountable to humanity for the sake of justice and peace for all.

Speaking at a peace vigil on the evening of 16 January in support of International Bridges for Justice, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit described the life-giving environment of justice, and its role in faith.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit preached on New Year’s Day in the Church of Ås in Norway. Tveit not only observed the first day of 2017 but also commemorated the 150th anniversary of Ås Church, as well as 500 years of Reformation.

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”.

Are steps needed now in case high-tech weapons of the future are designed to attack and kill on their own? Members of a United Nations treaty on inhumane weapons have decided an expert group will deliberate on the topic next year, and WCC has joined with civil society organizations and concerned governments for plans to ban such weapons.

A workshop in Mozambique examined the connections between finance on the one hand and food and land on the other. Titled “From the Financialization of Food to Life-giving Agriculture,” the workshop took place in Maputo from 7-11 December. It was organized by the WCC together with Bread for All and was hosted by the Christian Council of Mozambique.

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.

Many voices have joined the chorus demanding respect for indigenous peoples’ rights and eco-justice in connection with Standing Rock, a location at the heart of the struggle against the proposed path of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota, USA.

The experience of his father’s fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 and then living alien and stateless in Sweden provides biblical theologian Hans Ucko with the touchstone of his writing about stateless persons.

After gathering in Nigeria from 27-29 November, representatives from the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network released a statement entitled “A Pilgrimage of Water Justice in Africa.”

“I have been tested for HIV,” said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, who received his test while traveling in Oslo, Norway, as a demonstration of his support for the WCC campaign “Leading by Example: Religious Leaders and HIV Testing,” launched at events observing World AIDS Day - 1 December - at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland.

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.

Religious leaders are getting tested for HIV in hopes of inspiring others across the world to seek testing, too. Increasing the number of people receiving HIV testing is vitally important in the effort to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Representatives from the WCC's Ecumenical Water Network gathered in Nigeria from 27-29 November to discuss water as a basic human right in Africa and beyond.

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.