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The World Council of Churches (WCC) welcomed the news that the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Iranian women’s rights defender Narges Mohammadi.

Damaris, a Nigerian woman, described her experience of 2020: “We’ve gone through hell.”

Damaris and her sisters were kidnapped in March 2020 and threatened with death as their kidnappers demanded money. Her father had to sell everything and beg on the streets to meet their demands. “We are just a common people in Nigeria,” she said. “We don’t know what we did.”

A webinar hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) on 26 November will explore “Conflict Zones and Covid-19: A call to compassion.” Speakers from Cameroon, Nigeria, South Sudan, Lebanon, Belarus and Colombia will offer their insights on how conflict exacerbates the conditions for contracting and treating COVID-19 among civilians caught in the crossfire, especially women.

On Wednesday 21 October the World Council of Churches hosts a webinar open to the public covering the cultural, economic and spiritual aspects of the olive harvest.  

Rev. Fr Dr Lawrence Iwuamadi is dean of the Ecumenical Institute, the graduate school which opened its academic year this week. Below, Iwuamadi reflects on the arrival of new students at the Ecumenical Institute during this remarkable time.

Born in Nazareth, Galilee, Rev. Dr Saïd Ailabouni moved to the US at the age of 19 to become a physician. But he was so angry at God that he went to study theology instead, becoming a Lutheran pastor. Now he is leading the Middle East & Europe desk of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Since leaving his hometown 50 years ago, he visits his Palestinian family regularly. As the World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel approaches, Ailabouni agreed to share some of his lifetime observations with the Word Council of Churches.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) met formally on 25-27 June in Paris, under the theme “The normalization of hatred: challenges for Jews and Christians today”. This meeting took place at a time of significant challenges in public and religious life for many communities around the world. At the meeting Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, presented the WCC policies on antisemitism and the WCC’s work for human rights for all. The WCC News met with him after the meeting.

Salpy Eskidjian Weiderud, leader of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, received an International Religious Freedom Award from the US Department of State on 17 July. She paused to speak with WCC Communication with a word about what has inspired her life’s work for peace.

A delegation from the World Council of Churches (WCC) including representatives from Malaysia and Jordan as well as the Director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) visited The Bahamas from 13-17 November 2018 to consult with church leaders, to participate in a workshop coordinated by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri reflected on the recent Global Consultation on the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity, and what the insights gathered there might mean for the ecumenical movement.

Rev Prof. Dr Ofelia Ortega Suárez is a retired professor of Theology and Gender, and Christian Ethics for the Reformed-Presbyterian Church in Cuba. Ortega Suárez was born in Cuba. After her undergraduate studies in Theology and Christian Education at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas, she completed her post-graduate studies in Ecumenical Theology at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. She returned to Cuba and obtained her master's degrees in Divinity and Education.

During an open air common prayer event held in Nelson Mandela Park in Kingston, Jamaica on 4 October, women and men processed and sang, most of them dressed in black as they renewed and expanded their commitment to the Thursdays in Black campaign seeking a world free from rape and violence.

Linette Vassel has been associated with the struggle for women’s rights in the Caribbean since the 1970s. She was the first coordinator of the Committee of Women for Progress, an activist organisation formed in 1976 which was among the pioneering organisations for the struggle for maternity leave with pay for women.

Thirty years ago, the founders of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women were searching for ways to not only help women across the globe seek justice but also highlight their contributions to churches and the world.

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

Bishop Emeritus Munib Younan from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land accepted a “Building Bridges of Understanding” award on 12 September at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The award is organized by the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Rev. Gary Harriott knows there is a problem with violence against women and girls in Jamaica. Each year hundreds of women report having been raped and many more rapes and cases of aggression go unreported. Churches can make a difference by speaking out, he says.