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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.

Observed on 15-22 October 2017, the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance invites churches around the world again to a Churches’ Week of Action on Food, an opportunity to pray, reflect and take action together, for food-justice across the globe.

For the World Council of Churches Comission on Faith and Order, meeting in South Africa this year holds special significance. In 1960 a WCC meeting with member churches in the country was followed by a parting of ways with one of those churches for more than half a century, over the question of apartheid.

The Reformation was a defining moment 500 years ago but can also serve as an inspiration for the next five centuries, South African Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has told tens of thousands of people at the German Protestant Kirchentag.

Marking an important milestone in the history of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey, the first candidate of the institute’s doctoral programme successfully completed his research with a viva voce examination at the University of Geneva on 24 May.

As more people face famine today than any time in modern history, the WCC together with the All Africa Conference of Churches and a range of faith-based partners and networks invite a Global Day of Prayer to End Famine on 21 May 2017, in response to the hunger crisis.

Dr Samuel Kabue, an ordained elder of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, has been the person behind the solid work of the Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network over the past years. On 6 October, he was interviewed by WCC communications, in Geneva, and talked about his memoirs, “From the Village to the World”, the importance of inclusiveness and the loud prophetic voice of the minorities in church and society.

From Paris to Pakistan, Orlando to Myanmar, Iraq to Nigeria, each day witnesses conflict and violence perpetrated in the name of religion or committed against persons because of their religious identity.

Stories of women in church leadership are vital to forming a new generation of female pan-African leaders, say speakers at World Council of Churches event.

Women of African descent have been a force within the global ecumenical movement for decades but are still not well recognized for their contributions. It is time for that to change, say the organizers of a network of pan African theologians, laywomen and clergy within the WCC.

On his way to a Peace-building and Reconciliation Consultation in Johannesburg, the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary stopped off to visit South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu.

WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, went to Cape Town to talk with Archbishop Emeritus Tutu, the former leader of the Anglican church during the turbulent apartheid days.

A World Mission Conference, hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, is being planned for 2018, reported the executive group of the World Council of Church’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.

A new initiative titled Ecumenical Institute for the Middle East is “promising and inspiring” in its attempt to train young Christians in ecumenical thought and history, according to Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC.

As young people help to facilitate the meeting of the WCC's governing body, they are pursuing a collective pilgrimage of their own.

The moderator of the WCC Central Committee called for an openness to change in an era of encounter with “different types of cultures and religions”.

The WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, and Abune Mathias, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, affirmed their commitment in Addis Ababa to “continue working together to accomplish visions for justice and peace”.