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The fatal blast in Beirut last month became yet another blow to an already plagued country. In recent months, a financial crisis with a free-falling currency and rising unemployment has further undermined the Lebanese economy. Add to that one million Syrian refugees and the COVID-19 pandemic, and the contours of a fragile nation facing monumental challenges emerge.

With the announcement on 6 February of a Global Prayer Campaign for peace on the Korean Peninsula, World Council of Churches (WCC) leaders and partners looked back at 30-plus years of history and forward to events planned for 2020.

Erich Weingartner, who previously helped lead the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, has also represented CanKor, a Canadian interactive resource on North Korea. From the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, he was also founding head of the Food Aid Liaison Unit of the World Food Programme.

The World Council of Churches (WCC), with the Korea Institute for National Unification, reflected on international cooperation for improvement of human rights and ecumenical cooperation for diakonia ministry in North Korea.

They came from governments, the United Nations, civil society, churches and other faith-based organizations to discuss the impact of Cyclone Idai that has wreaked death, havoc and destruction on Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in recent weeks.

An international seminar held in Seoul on 4-5 March explored how diaconal ministry contributes to the reconciliation and peace work of the global church, and how diaconal ministry efforts can be improved through exchange and cooperation among churches in North and South Korea.

WCC News met with the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr Alexi Chehadeh, who leads the Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East in Damascus, Syria. He is an impressive role model and peacemaker in Syria.

“We look forward to working closely with you in the fulfillment of people’s hopes and needs worldwide to the glory of the one God”, said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in a message of greeting to Birgitte Qvist-Sørensen, elected moderator of the governing board of ACT Alliance, on 31 October, in Uppsala, Sweden.

The joint ACT Alliance-Caritas Internationalis response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur remains a powerful witness to the Christian unity possible in diakonia.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has expressed deep regret over the decision by the government of the USA to withdraw all funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian Refugees.

On 29 June, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) published guidance aimed at helping humanitarian agencies attune their work to the faith and background of people affected by conflict, disaster and displacement.

South Sudanese churches have welcomed the signing of a permanent ceasefire agreement by the main rivals, while cautioning that many other such pacts had also been dishonoured.

On 20 March the unique program aiming to empower Syrian-Armenian youth who escaped the ongoing conflict in Syria and settled in Armenia was launched in Yerevan. Through training, capacity building and joint activities, the project aims to deepen the relations between Syrian and local Armenian youth.

In 2018 we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches. In order to create a lively firsthand account of the ecumenical fellowship and of our shared journey, member churches have contributed stories of people, events, achievements and even failures, all of which have deepened our collective search for Christian unity. This story was written by Olle Eriksson, a Namibian who worked for 35 years (1968 – 2003) with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission and Lutheran World Federation.

Ecumenical diakonia means complementing each other in what we do best: serving our communities, thus bringing visible church unity to the world, agreed participants at an Ecumenical Strategic Forum on Diakonia and Sustainable Development convened by the World Council of Churches (WCC) last week.

The 78-year-old sociology professor recently inaugurated as President of the (South) Korean Red Cross had his first contacts with the divided North while working at the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, where he served for more than 17 years until 1999.