Global Christian Forum sustains imperative role in a post-pandemic world and reaches out to new groups of people. Global meeting to be held in Ghana in 2024.
At ecumenical prayers in the capital city, Juba, South Sudanese church leaders called for unity, peace, and reconciliation, as their nation continued to struggle with instability and conflict, a decade after independence.
The general secretary-elect of the World Council of Churches (WCC) believes that growing up during a period of conflict and suffering in South Africa will stand him in good stead when he takes up his position as the head of the ecumenical body in January as a leader who believes in dialogue.
A church leader in South Sudan is urging the international community to keep its focus on the growing humanitarian crisis in the world’s youngest nation, as the globe beams its attention on the conflict in Ukraine.
His Excellency Rev. Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, president of the Republic of Malawi, and First Lady Monica Chakwera and a delegation visited the Ecumenical Centre on 21 February, meeting with World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, the WCC staff leadership group and programme executives.
When Rev. Frank Chikane was leading the South African Council of Churches in calling out injustices of the apartheid system, their work did not stop even after the council’s office building was bombed to the ground in 1980s. Moderating the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches (WCC) since 2016, Rev. Chikane has been engaged in addressing injustices in many parts of the world. WCC Communication asked Rev. Chikane to look back at his term at the commission and the ongoing calling of churches to address injustices in the world today.
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, one of the people who followed in the footsteps of Desmond Tutu as archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa announced the death of “the Arch” as he was affectionately known on 26 December, fittingly celebrated in South Africa as the “Day of Goodwill.”
As flooding in South Sudan reached extreme levels, the country’s church leaders are urging the international community to aid their country in battling the catastrophe which experts linked to climate change.
In the years since it was founded in 2016, the International Centre for Inter-Faith Peace and Harmony in Kaduna, Nigeria has been building a cadre of peacemakers who are witnesses to inter-religious peace and harmony. It also continues to serve as a physical symbol helping Muslims and Christians work together more effectively.
On 18 July, prayer services in South Africa will mark Nelson Mandela’s birthday and will also be an opportunity to pray for unity.
The Religious Forum Against COVID-19 has elected to observe the day in both a nationally broadcast prayer service as well as observing 67 minutes of prayer that evening.
The following interview with Benoît and Denise Lokila, of the Cana Fraternity in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is part of a series dedicated to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
WCC News met online with Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Council of Churches central committee, and she offers reflections on the impact of COVID-19, what gives her hope, and the future of the ecumenical movement.
When a group of Cameroonian religious leaders from both English and French-speaking communities, both Christian and Muslim, met to discuss the crisis in the Anglophone western provinces of Cameroon, they committed themselves to being "diplomats of peace.”
South Sudanese Church leaders are appealing for urgent humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of their population, who have been left vulnerable by a mix of five crises, including floods and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A webinar held 22 October gave space for persons with disabilities to share their reflections. Entitled “From Lamentation to Transformation,” the event, first in a series of webinars on COVID-19 perspectives, highlighted hope through stories, practical support, and social change as experienced by persons with disabilities.
In Meskel celebrations held under World Health Organization COVID-19 safety protocols, Abune Mathias, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, called for dialogue, peace and reconciliation in the country, where ethnic tensions recently flared up.
As South Sudan joined the world in celebrating the International Day of Peace, the country’s church leaders urged speedy implementation of a key peace pact known as the Revitalised - Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan.
H.E., Most Rev. Seraphim (Kykkotis) of Zimbabwe is the metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Zimbabwe in eastern Africa, part of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa. He serves on the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive and central committees, and also on the WCC Climate Change Working Group.
The World Council of Churches, Lutheran World Federation, World Communion of Reformed Churches and Methodist World Council sent a letter to the churches and people of Zimbabwe expressing solidarity with the nation in its difficult quest for human rights and justice.