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A “Religious Consultation on Social Cohesion in Iraq,” held 13-15 in Beirut, released a final communiqué, the fruit of wide interreligious participation that included religious and ethnic leaders of all Iraqi components working together for peace in Iraq and the Middle East.

An interfaith consultation held 12-16 December in Beirut, Lebanon, offered the chance for participants from different traditions to share their vision for social and religious cohesion in Iraq, assessing the current context and envisioning the way forward.

George Ziadeh is CEO of the Compassion Protestant Society, which has started a fundraising campaign, “Beirut Hope,” to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the explosion in the port of Beirut on 4 August. The interview below is excerpted from an original interview of Ziadeh produced by the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, that joined the appeal for donations for the victims of the explosion in the port of Beirut.

An international conference held at the invitation of the Foreign Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Nikos Kotzias, has gathered around 70 prominent religious, political and academic figures in Athens, Greece, this week.

To achieve just peace in the Middle East, “it is very adequate to focus on what would maintain and reinforce the cultural and religious diversity that has distinguished this region for long centuries,” said the WCC general secretary.

High officials from ancient Christian churches in the Near East have issued a common statement denouncing the emergence of armed extremist groups who “murder, shatter and violate the sacred nature of the churches” and other suffering communities in the Middle East.

For the first time in their history, the patriarch of the Antiochian Orthodox Church has asked the believers to adorn the traditional Palm Sunday processions with black ribbons tied on candles rather than the usual white ribbons expressing their sadness because of the two abducted church leaders from Aleppo, Syria.

Reflections on the recent “Arab spring” and young people’s involvement in the challenges of a changing ecumenical landscape were the focus of discussions in a recent meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Echos – Commission on youth in the ecumenical movement.