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Many ecumenical pioneers, including former WCC general secretary Philip Potter, were in a sense a product of the Sunday School movement. Ulrich Becker tells a story that seems to be in danger of being forgotten.

The WCC Executive Committee met in Uppsala, Sweden from 1-8 November to approve the 2019 programme plans and budget, follow up and decide on a variety of assembly matters, review the WCC strategic plan, discuss world affairs and issue seven statements in response to current situations. The Executive Committee also discerned the way forward for the WCC’s Communication Strategy.

In a sermon in the Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden on 4 November, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit remembered that, on 4 July 1968, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. should have entered the very same cathedral to preach at the opening service of the WCC Fourth Assembly.

Unity and solidarity in Christ against populist trends was at the core of the opening message for an Ecumenical Weekend in Uppsala, Sweden on 3-4 November. Under the theme ”Behold, I make everything new!”, 150 guests gathered to reflect on current challenges for ecumenism.

On a Joint Day of Reflection on Ecumenical Diakonia and Sustainable Development held 1 November, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and ACT Alliance reflected together on how the organisations work together in service to the world and how that work contributes to the broader agenda for sustainable development.

In 1968, the ecumenical movement took an important step forward when its commitment to global justice and peace was manifested at the WCC general assembly in Uppsala, Sweden. Half a century later, the Ecumenical Weekend, which kicks off on Saturday in the very same Swedish city, will not only celebrate 50 years of global ecumenism, it also raises urgent issues and new challenges facing the ecumenical movement.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit offered a greeting at the General Assembly of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, being held this week in Basel, Switzerland.

The archbishop Dr Nathan Söderblom, an ecumenical forerunner and messenger of peace in war-torn Europe, challenged a deeply divided Christianity 100 years ago. Against all odds, the Stockholm Conference on Life and Work in 1925 gathered church leaders at a scale the world had not seen since Nicaea 1600 years earlier. And it did not end there.

By his own admission, John D. Lewis was a very “young” eighteen-year-old when he arrived at the WCC Central Committee meeting in Geneva 45 years ago this week to be a steward. What he discovered there, and serving again in Berlin the following year, he carries with him to this day.

Amsterdam Concert Hall, 23 August 1948, 10:00. Sunday worship leads to Monday work. So, as you enter the Concert Hall, don’t let your aesthetic imagination be captured by the bust of the sublime Johann Sebastian Bach.

Hundreds of people gathered from across the world for an ecumenical prayer service at the Nieuwe Kerk, a 15th-century church in Amsterdam, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) at the very spot in which the organization was founded.

World Council of Churches leaders spoke on the theme “Hospitality: On a Pilgrim’s Way of Justice and Peace" at a symposium on 23 August at the Protestant Theological University Amsterdam.

Dam Square, Amsterdam, 22 August, 03:00 PM. A considerable crowd is gathered outside the New Church, which unlike its name may suggest was built at the end of the 14th century and dedicated in 1409. The weather has improved after a grey morning of low clouds and light rain.

I have experienced many good stories with the WCC, but unfortunately disappointing ones as well, says Rev. Dr Margot Käßmann, Lutheran theologian and former chairperson of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. She was a member of the WCC Central and Executive Committees for many years, until her resignation in 2002. The story she contributed for the WCC 70th anniversary commemoration looks back to the 1998 WCC Assembly in Harare, which marked the end of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women.

WCC Communication shares a brief overview of the Central Committee meeting held in Geneva on 15-21 June, 2018.

For Marijke van Duin it was culture shock on two levels: being in sub-Saharan Africa, attending a huge international conference. Both for the first time. The Dutch Mennonite experienced confrontation, transformation and hope at the WCC 8th Assembly in Harare…and made a friendship that transcended borders.

The visit of the pope to the World Council of Churches (WCC) has special significance, given the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa, where Christians are suffering persecution, says a member of WCC’s senior governing body.

“I will pray for you, that the Lord will accompany you at every step, particularly on the journey of ecumenism.” With these words, spoken at the close of the liturgy with 30,000 people in the convention hall of Palexpo, Pope Francis ended his daylong Ecumenical Pilgrimage to Geneva and offered a strong encouragement to the Catholic community in Switzerland to live ecumenically with the faithful of other denominations.

To mark the visit of Pope Francis to the WCC on 21 June, a special online “Virtual Issue” of the WCC’s quarterly journal, The Ecumenical Review, is offering a set of articles about relationships between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church.