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At the World Assembly 2023 of the United Bible Societies in October 2023, the secretary general of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Jerry Pillay, and Rev. Dirk Gevers, secretary general of the United Bible Societies, celebrated the long history of cooperation between the organizations.

A World Council of Churches delegation led by general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay has concluded its visit to Armenia after “witnessing dramatic events”.

A World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation will visit the Armenian Apostolic Church on 18-22 September. The visit will include an audience with His Holiness Karekin II, the Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians.

At a conference to promote freedom of religion and preservation of spiritual, cultural and historical heritage, held at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin from 8-12 September, World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca reflected on “Holy Places and our Human Identities.”

In an ecumenical meeting for North American church leaders on 24 June, prayers and discussion centered on issues that are both deeply painful and seemingly insurmountable: racism, division, vaccine hesitancy, genocide, war. But hope found a way into the virtual gathering as participants supported each other to find ways forward.

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.

Voices from the World Council of Churches (WCC) global fellowship are speaking out strongly against racism and for justice in an ongoing show of solidarity and action. These voices are amplifying the idea of a “conversion that will end all forms of racism and racial discrimination” set forth in a 3 June World Council of Churches (WCC) Executive Committee Statement on Racial Justice in the USA.

“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.

“The member churches of the World Council of Churches have pledged themselves to stand against all genocides, wherever they happen,” said the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the council (WCC), on the morning of 10 June after a solemn service of remembrance at the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum overlooking the capital city of Yerevan. The service took place in the context of the one-hundredth anniversary of an era of great suffering following mass arrests, executions and deportation of Armenians beginning on 24 April 1915.

Amid the ongoing offensive by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which recently caused the destruction of the Armenian church and genocide memorial in Deir Zor, Syria – an incident condemned by the WCC – staff members of the council reflect on what such incidents may mean for Christians and other faith communities in the region.

Leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church have marked the 99th anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide with calls for recognition of that historic event. Beginning in April 1915, more than one million Armenians were killed by troops of the Ottoman Empire, a world power with its capital in what is now the Republic of Turkey.

The WCC and the Armenian Apostolic Church are hosting a one-month exhibition on the Armenian genocide, displaying information on the history of genocidal events in the Ottoman Empire which killed more than a million Christian Armenians between 1915 and 1923.