Search results

In a public statement, the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee expressed grave concern for the people of Ethiopia and urged churches and organizations everywhere to answer urgent needs with humanitarian aid.

In a pastoral letter to “sisters and brothers in Ethiopia,” eight faith-based organizations expressed Christian love and care, as well as a commitment to accompany churches and people of Ethiopia as they face the challenges confronting their country.

Dr. Nigussu Legesse shared in the joy a year ago when the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church declared an end to a 27-year-old schism that had torn it apart. That rapprochement set in motion a series of events that are taking him back to his homeland.
Legesse was then World Council of Churches (WCC) programme executive and convener for Africa.
After more than 10 years at the council, he is moving back to Addis Ababa as executive director of the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Associations.

With a prayer service on Ash Wednesday in Sealite Mihret Orthodox cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the WCC's Ecumenical Water Network began its annual Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water”. This year during Lent it will raise awareness of water justice issues in Africa.

After recent reports of widespread violent demonstrations in Addis-Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia, local church leaders and members of the WCC joined in a call for peaceful dialogue and restraint on all sides.

“Statelessness renders people’s vulnerability to abuse and to denial of their rights invisible to national authorities. In this sense the right to a nationality is a threshold issue for access to protection of all other human rights - almost a 'right to have rights'”, said Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), following a regional training workshop on birth registration and gender discriminatory nationality laws in Africa, organized by the WCC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11–13 May.

In a solidarity letter to Abune Mathias, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, a member church of the WCC, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the WCC general secretary expressed deep shock over the recent killing of more than 20 Ethiopian Christians in Libya by the so called Islamic State.

A communiqué adopted at a WCC consultation describes human trafficking as a “serious human rights violation” and its consequences are “most horrific results of the economic and social disparities that increase the vulnerability of millions of people”.