Search results

As the statements calling for justice in Cremisan Valley fail to work, churches urged the international community at the 36th Session of UN Human Rights Council for action regarding the occupied territories between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

The 54th meeting of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) began today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, marking its yearly regional focus on Africa. During the meeting CCIA members are discussing the commission’s previous work and its outcomes focusing on Middle East, as well as setting strategic directions for activities until 2021.

An ecumenical delegation organized by the WCC was received by Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of the Kurdistan Regional Government, on 28 September 2015 in Erbil. The ecumenical delegation had spent six days visiting the Kurdistan Region of Iraq – including the Duhok area, part of the Nineveh Plain, and Erbil – and represented the WCC at the 27 September enthronement of the new Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Gewargis III, in Erbil.

Reduction in and prevention of statelessness, and the protection of stateless people in the Middle East provided the focus of a workshop organized by the WCC and the Middle East Council of Churches in Beirut, Lebanon.

A WCC team met last week with religious leaders and community members in northern Iraq to assess the situation of heightened violence and displacement due to attacks by militants of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (IS).

Politicization of religion, rights of religious minorities and stateless people, peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula and just peace served as subjects of the public statements adopted at the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea.

An international consultation on “Ecumenical Advocacy for the Protection of the Human Rights of Migrant Workers in the Arabian Gulf Region” is currently taking place from 29 April to 2 May at the Santhigiri Ashram in Kerala, India. The consultation was organized by the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Executive Committee issued a statement expressing concern over the disappearance of asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa and northern Africa, falling prey to human traffickers in the Sinai desert while crossing borders between Egypt and Israel.

The 11 October killing in Mousel, Iraq, of a Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch priest, Father Boulos Iskander, was a "senseless crime that... neither benefits anyone nor promotes the cause of any religion".

"Tom Fox was in Iraq as a religious peacemaker so that those who use violence to pursue their own plans for that much-troubled nation might see that this is no way toward peace," Peter Weiderud, director of the World Council of Churches' Commission of the Churches for International Affairs (WCC/CCIA), said in Geneva today.

To fully evaluate the Gaza pullout, it is necessary to watch for a number of "signs of peace" in the months ahead, according to the international affairs unit of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Free photos available, see below

Photos available free of charge, see below

Photos available free of charge, see below

Annan welcomes proposal to mark International Day of Peace with prayer