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The upcoming Barbados Gospelfest, set for 21-28 May, will express churches’ affirmation and celebration of persons with disabilities in musical and other creative ways.

A “human chain” singing for peace and a new hymn by Swedish composer and pastor Per Harling are just two of many creative ways people are expressing their yearning for peace.

“Inequality hurts us all and goes against God’s vision of life in abundance for every human being”, said Athena Peralta, World Council of Churches (WCC) programme executive for economic and ecological justice, at a prayer service on the occasion of the Week of Action to Fight Inequality, held at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, on 21 January.

The Council of Christian Churches in France (CÉCEF) is encouraging local churches to support a recently created Green Church environmental certification label, asking that offerings made at ecumenical services during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity go to help finance the initiative.

It’s 70 years since the World Council of Churches was founded in Amsterdam on 23 August. In addition to a commemoration service in Amsterdam on 23 August, the WCC, its member churches and partners are planning a variety of events to move forward on our ongoing Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, and at the same time honour and learn from these 70 years of ecumenical endeavour. Dr Abuom, from the Anglican Church of Kenya, is the moderator of the WCC Central Committee. She is the first woman and the first African in the position in WCC’s history. In an interview, she reflects on the evolution of the WCC in the past 70 years.

Sit beside Bishop Mary Ann Swenson for five minutes, and you see that she is constantly nurturing people to learn more about each other, walk together, and become more unified, no matter their differences.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, delivered a public address at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 24 April as part of his official visit to Switzerland on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his enthronement as Ecumenical Patriarch and the 50th anniversary of the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy.

He earned the title “Green Patriarch” as a religious leader addressing alarming environmental issues over at least two decades. In 2008, Time Magazine named His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as one of 100 Most Influential People in the World, for “defining environmentalism as spiritual responsibility”.

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

Available now in four languages, a new online publication from the WCC invites parishes and congregations to explore the themes of Christian unity, justice and peace in advance of the upcoming WCC 10th Assembly.

Drawing on the Indian churches' experience, churches around the world are celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with a particular focus on justice as integral to the unity they seek.