A gathering of church leaders in Africa held via videoconference on 11February as part of the ongoing World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee meeting has expressed hope for healing, reconciliation and unity amidst several challenges facing the continent.
His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is visiting Iceland from 12-15 October, invited by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, the WCC and the Arctic Circle. The Ecumenical Patriarch will deliver a keynote speech at the Arctic Circle Assembly under the title Just Peace with Earth on 13 October, then preside over a Divine Liturgy in the Hallgrímskirkja cathedral in Reykjavík and attend an ecumenical service on 15 October.
The diocese of West Ankole Church of Uganda consecrated its fourth bishop, Rev. Johnson Twinomujuni who replaced the Rev. Yonah Katonene on 28 May. Katonene has served as a member of World Council of Churches Central Committee since 2013, and retired from being the diocesan bishop last October.
Lutheran communication directors and communication officers from the Nordic countries met in Stockholm, Sweden to discuss the role of the church in the civil society in a local, national and global context. It’s exactly 90 years since August 1925 when Nathan Söderblom, Swedish ecumenist and Nobel laureate, organized the First International Conference on Life and Work, an ecumenical gathering in Sweden with participants from all over the word.
In a call to celebrate Time for Creation, Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, encouraged the churches to pay attention to the “human interventions impacting the ecological balance”.
Botshelo Moilwa, a young African woman from Gaborone, Botswana, called on churches to affirm the dignity of women amidst the realities of HIV and AIDS and sexual violence, if they are to realize the Christian vision of justice and peace.
“Uganda is a country of strong Christian witness. It is a country of Christian martyrs like Archbishop Janani Luwum, who lost his life at the hands of Idi Amin. It is therefore natural that we get together in Uganda to see what peace, justice and dignity mean to the African churches.”
At the 50th anniversary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, church leaders from more than forty African countries ask how they can rise up against the shackles of the colonial legacy, conflicts, poverty, class struggles and political upheavals, to unlock Africa's immense potential.
