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The YATRA training (Youth in Asia Training for Religious Amity), organized each year by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in cooperation with the Cambodia-based Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS), is an opportunity for young Christians from different countries of Asia to learn about other religions of their contexts and become involved in the “pilgrimage of justice and peace” which the WCC Assembly had called for in 2013. This year, there were 25 young people gathered in Siam Reap, Cambodia, for two weeks of living and learning together.

The Youth in Asia Training for Religious Amity (YATRA), as a space to encounter other religions, offered me a fascinating yatra (pilgrimage) into Hinduism through the lectures of Prof. Meera Baindur from India who introduced Hinduism as a religion of epics and mythologies and helped me to encounter my own Christian faith afresh.

After century upon century of periodic warfare, the continent of Europe has, for the last 60 years or so, enjoyed a period of unprecedented peace. The most one can say for European peace is that since second world war no western European power has gone to war against another western European power. But are we on the real and deeply true way to reach, keep and develop justice and peace?

Today is a travel day for me, journeying from Stuttgart, where many thousands of Protestants from all over Germany along with many fellow believers from other confessions and countries had gathered for a four-day festival of faith and action, to the venue of the European Christian Internet Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Being offline for a few hours of travel time is an opportunity to think about my work and how it contributes to the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace.

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance in the context of one's own learning, beliefs, or faith. It can be a physical journey to a particular place, or a metaphysical journey in search of insight. It can be a revisiting of spiritual roots or a first visit to the faith domain of a friend.

"This is the year to act. We, the people of the world, need you, the world’s religious leaders, to motivate your communities, to advocate and persuade others to take the necessary, if difficult, decisions." This was the message from Ban Ki-moon and many high-level scientists yesterday, as we met in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome to discuss sustainable development and climate change.

Pilgrimages are familiar to many of us from The Canterbury Tales or The Pilgrim’s Progress. In both of these classics of Western literature pilgrimages feature prominently. You might remember that Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories represented as part of story-telling contest between a group of pilgrims journeying to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize being a free meal at the Tabard Inn in Southwark on the return journey. The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory about the life of a protagonist named “Christian” whose journey through the story represents the pilgrimage or journey that is the life of the Christian.