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As we witness the ongoing violence and injustice in the Holy Land and seek to stand in solidarity with its peoples struggling to find peace, the 2024 WCC-EAPPI Easter initiative lifts up the call to roll away the heavy stone of violence, war, and occupation, pain, and suffering, and to remind the world of what is needed to bring about peace, and to transform swords into ploughshares.

Church Unites in Prayer, Firmly Condemns Massacre at Hospital, and Grieves the Loss of Hundreds of
Innocent Civilians

The World Council of Churches (WCC) expressed both outrage and shock at the news of an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

Minute on Territorial Crises in the Eastern Mediterranean by the WCC central committee, Geneva, Switzerland, 21-27 June 2023.

Report of the WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay to the WCC Central Committee meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, 21 - 27 June 2023.

On 23 February 2023, at a special event at the University of Fribourg honoring his work, former acting general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, delivered a lecture exploring the question: “What future for the ecumenical movement?”

Betet und handelt für Frieden in Jerusalem: Der heilige Boden Jerusalems sollte für alle Menschen in der Stadt, ungeachtet ihrer religiösen oder nationalen Identität, geschützt werden.

The World Council of Churches regrets the decision by the Government of the United States of America to withdraw all funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian Refugees.

‘Let Mutual Love Continue’: Message to the Churches from the Third Global Gathering of the Global Christian Forum, Bogotá, Colombia 24-27 April 2018

Address at the opening session by Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, in Cairo, 17 January 2018.

"The quest for unity in the practice of the WCC", report of the WCC general secretary to the WCC executive committee meeting in Amman, Jordan, November 2017

Open letter from The National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine to the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement.

The WCC leadership will bring the letter to the next meeting of its Executive Committee in November 2017 in Amman, Jordan. The WCC also invited its members churches and partners worldwide to read and share the letter as a local voice from today’s Palestine.

This year, 2017, marks several historic anniversaries of great importance to the history and development of the situation in Israel and Palestine and to the ecumenical community’s response to this situation – including 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 50 years since the Six Day War of 1967, and 10 years since the 2007 WCC International Peace Conference "Churches together for Peace and Justice in the Middle East" in Amman, Jordan.

In his report to the Executive Committee, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit noted that we are living in a time when the purpose and the objectives of the WCC are highly relevant.

Based on these realities, there is a need for a new search for unity, he said. “Through the many dimensions of its work, the WCC contributes to the unity of the church, and the unity that the WCC is able to express, in turn, contributes to the unity of humankind.”

The 6th reflection of the Lenten Campaign: Seven Weeks for Water 2017 of the Word Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) is by Rev. Frank Chikane. Rev. Frank Chikane is a former Director General and Secretary of Cabinet in the presidency of South Africa under Thabo Mbeki (1999 – 2008), Khalema  Motlanthe (2008-2009) and Jacob Zuma (2009). He was also Director General in Office of Deputy President Mbeki and Deputy Secretary of the Cabinet during President Nelson Mandela’s Presidency. He is also the former general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (1987-1994). Currently, he is the moderator of the WCC’s Commission of Churches on International Affairs and is the author of many books. He is remembered for his struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa during his student days and the rest of his adult life until 1994. In the following reflection, relating to his own context as well as from the biblical story of Isaac’s wells, he highlights how water can be a source of conflict as well as a source of peace-building. Water has the potential to create peace when it is shared. He further explores the River Nile on the African continent as an example.

This document is a summary and synthesis of policy positions on key issues pertaining to the situation in Palestine and Israel adopted by governing bodies of the World Council of Churches (WCC) from 1948 to 2016. It addresses major themes in these policy positions, but does not pretend to full comprehensiveness. The document has no official standing itself; for the official authoritative positions, the original policy documents referred to should be consulted directly.

As part of an ongoing, multiyear project called “Walking Together,” an international and interreligious group met in Nicosia, Cyprus, from 6-8 December to explore different facets of the theme “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace,” which undergirds the World Council of Churches' programmatic focus.

Keinem Volk sollte sein Recht vorenthalten werden, und sicherlich sollte keinem Volk sein Recht über Generationen hinweg vorenthalten werden. Der ungelöste Konflikt in Israel und Palästina ist primär eine Frage der Gerechtigkeit, und bis Gerechtigkeit herrscht, kann es dort keinen Frieden geben. Bald hält Israel Ost-Jerusalem, das Westjordanland und Gaza seit 50 Jahren besetzt; das bedeutet, dass mehrere Generationen unter dieser Situation gelitten haben und weiterhin darunter leiden. Die Möglichkeit einer tragfähigen Zweistaatenlösung, für die wir uns schon seit langem einsetzen, scheint schwerer zu erreichen und unrealistischer denn je zuvor.