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As the Bridge Builder Awards were presented in a ceremony in Oslo on 22 November, interreligious peacemakers stood together to be recognized for their vital work in raising the values of respect, love, and tolerance for each other.

Dr. Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee, offered a speech entitled “A Clarion Christian Call to Justice and Peace: Ending Global Inequality and Climate injustice” at the Justice Conference in Oslo, Norway on 9 November.

"I think it is wonderful that ICAN won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, we really need this when we see what today’s superpowers are doing. We all want peace on earth!"

This year it is five hundred years since the Reformation. This has been commemorated throughout the year. A lot has happened in the world. The Reformation is ongoing in churches around the world. Discussions are constantly held about how a church should be today and how to reach out with the gospel. WCC News meets Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien this year, one of the most experienced and prominent women among Lutheran bishops in the world.

Meeting the Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is humbling. Sharing their stories is a challenge. Travelling to Oslo in Norway on 9-10 December, more than 20 Hibakusha joined celebrations of ICAN receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. May we remember them well, with dignity and respect.

In a country where Christians are in clear minority, often suffering discrimination, and in a context that has seen repeated frictions and violence between people of different religious traditions, the Church of Norway and Church of Pakistan have broken new ecumenical ground during a recent week in Lahore, Pakistan.

If we do not adjust aid better to the needs of the minorities in Syria and northern Iraq, we run the risk of building walls instead of bridges. As the populations of Syria and Iraq feel the toll of armed conflicts in their countries, the World Council of Churches and Norwegian Church Aid are now releasing a unique joint study, “Protection needs of minorities from Syria and Iraq,” today, 28 November, in Oslo, Norway.

Georges “Yorgo” Lemopoulos says his discovery of global ecumenism as a theology student in Istanbul, Turkey, transformed his life. The member of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople credits theology professors who were active in ecumenical work with awakening his interest in the global church movement.

A plenary discussion on support by religious communities for the rights of children, and a first draft of the statement of “principles for child-friendly churches,” captured the imagination of the Central Committee of the WCC on 27 June. The document will now undergo further revision and be resubmitted at the next WCC executive committee meeting.

Getting more people tested and treated for HIV, caring for the sick, helping people understand how to care for themselves —these are the tasks of faith-based organizations (FBOs) helping people with HIV in local communities.

War, ethnic conflict, millions of refugees and a deteriorating humanitarian situation provide a bleak background for discussion of the Middle East.

Stories of women in church leadership are vital to forming a new generation of female pan-African leaders, say speakers at World Council of Churches event.

The 2016 WCC Central Committee meeting was called to order by its moderator, Dr Agnes Abuom, from the Anglican Church of Kenya, on the morning of 22 June in the city of Trondheim, Norway.

“The way we handle the refugee crisis, not least the settling in and integration process, will be of utmost significance, both for the attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers in the future, and for the long-term stability and sustainability of our own societies”, said Knut Vollebaek, ambassador and former Norwegian foreign minister, in his speech at the recent WCC/UN conference on Europe’s refugee crisis.

Following the WCC/UN High Level Conference on the Refugee Crisis in Europe, which took place at the Ecumenical Centre Geneva on 18-19 January, a statement has been issued entitled "Europe’s Response to the Refuge Crisis, From Origin to Transit, Reception and Refuge, A Call for Shared Responsibility and Coordinated Action”.

The Executive Committee, a 25-member governing body of the WCC, is meeting from 13 through 18 November at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland to consider a series of programmatic reports and proposals for the criteria to be used in priority setting amid the continuing work of the WCC.

Scattered throughout the recent history of Indigenous Peoples are national treaties, declarations and laws that languish in obscurity or are brushed aside and ignored.

An “inter-generational dialogue on faith, culture, HIV and sexual reproductive health and rights” was initiated on 11 March in New York City by the World YWCA in partnership with the WCC and other international organizations. The dialogue was organized as a side event at the United Nations 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.