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As a teenager growing up in East Germany in the 1980s, Dr Ellen Ueberschär learned of freedom of speech in her church parish and believes that fundamental digital rights will not prevail on their own or through voluntary commitments by corporations.

With well over a year past since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Easter celebrations in 2021 were bound to be unusual. Yet even amid such circumstances, the Ecumenical Institute chapel at Château de Bossey saw students and faculty gather to mark Orthodox Easter last Saturday evening.

In a statement issued just after the verdict finding former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of the murder of George Floyd, Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, reflected that no verdict can erase the pain of the Floyd family.

As Ethiopia faces increasing inter-communal tensions and violence, and rising cases of COVID-19, the nation’s religious communities have been jointly observing a special week of prayer for peace, an interreligious initiative that is bringing people together from all over the country.

World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca sent a prayerful letter to churches in the Caribbean as they face daily challenges from the continued eruption of La Soufriere volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St Vincent.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel convened its Annual Meeting on 12-14 April, to receive updates about the reconfiguration of the WCC’s Jerusalem-based activities as well as to make plans to be able to safely send Ecumenical Accompaniers back to the region to continue providing protective international presence for vulnerable Palestinian communities and to monitor and report on incidents of concern. 

Patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem shared Easter greetings of hope with Christians around the world. “This past year has been a time of great sorrow for all the world,” the message reads. “Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions have suffered serious illness, with many succumbing to death.”

In an Easter message, World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca conveyed the traditional greeting: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”

While Christians around the globe prepare to celebrate Easter, military occupation continues to severely impact communities in the same places where Jesus himself is said to have walked in the Easter story. An Easter initiative by the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (WCC-EAPPI) now sets out to connect the Biblical narrative with current realities in Palestine and Israel, to spotlight the injustices of life under occupation.

Four new videos, part of an Easter Initiative by the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, offer a firsthand glimpse into the lives of people living under military occupation.