Search results

Against the background of the Russian invasion and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, a high-level WCC leadership delegation visiting Ukraine undertook an intensive series of consultations in Kyiv on 11 May 2023, with church leaders, Ukrainian government officials, and others.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed concern and sadness upon hearing about alleged actions taken against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) against the background of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian archbishop Yevstratiy of Chernihiv and Nizhyn, in a press briefing at the World Council of Churches (WCC) 11th Assembly, told journalists that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has applied to become a full member of the WCC and the Conference of European Churches.

Deploring the illegal and unjustifiable war “inflicted on the people and sovereign state of Ukraine” the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee lamented “the awful and continuing toll of deaths, destruction and displacement, of destroyed relationships and ever more deeply entrenched antagonism between the people of the region, of escalating confrontation globally, of increased famine risk in food insecure regions of the world, of economic hardship and heightened social and political instability in many countries.”

The World Council of Churches (WCC) convened an ecumenical roundtable consultation on the situation in Ukraine, which took place 30 March at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute.

The joint ACT Alliance-Caritas Internationalis response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur remains a powerful witness to the Christian unity possible in diakonia.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby declared Sudan the 39th province of the worldwide Anglican communion on 30 July.

A new initiative titled Ecumenical Institute for the Middle East is “promising and inspiring” in its attempt to train young Christians in ecumenical thought and history, according to Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC.

The “pilgrimage is both a way to continue working for the one ecumenical movement and a way to move forward in our times that offer new dimensions, opportunities and practices,” said the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

Attacks on civilians and the denial of human rights continues in the Nuba Mountain region of Sudan.

Two ecumenical councils in South Sudan and Sudan have now been established. The decision comes after South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011 following a referendum mandated by the 2005 peace pact that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war.

In his meeting with the Sudanese minister Alfatih T. Abdallah, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit stressed the important role of Sudanese churches in rebuilding their nation after years of conflict, along with the assurance of their religious freedoms.