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Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria travelled from the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Karlsruhe, Germany, to join a 5 September ceremony marking 50 years since 11 Israeli athletes died in a terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich.

After Wednesday evening’s attack by a gunman on a synagogue in the German city of Halle as dozens of worshippers observed Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of fasting and atonement that follows Rosh Hoshanah, the Jewish new year, World Council of Churches general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said “the assault seems to be a brazen display of racist anti-Semitism that, sadly, is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere.”

About 65 scholars of Buddhist-Christian relations gathered in St Ottilien, near Eresing, Germany for a conference to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Rev. Dr Lynn A. de Silva (1919-1982), a pioneer of Christian Buddhist dialogue. Organised by the European Network of Buddhist Christian Studies in association with the World Council of Churches (WCC), the conference focused on the theme “Buddhist-Christian Encounter – A Visionary Approach”.

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) was featured in the DW Global Media Forum held 27-28 May in Bonn, Germany. More than 2,000 media professionals, policymakers, and movers from politics and civil society, culture and education, business and science – representing 140 countries – attended the conference.

Together with the heads of the Coptic, Syrian, Armenian and Indian Orthodox Churches, the Evangelical Church in Germany celebrated on Saturday evening in Berlin an ecumenical prayer for Christians in the Middle East. The jointly prepared service was the highlight of a historic visit. For the first time, Pope Tawadros II, Patriarch Ignatius Afrem II, Catholicos Karekin II and Catholicos Baselios Morthoma Paulose II visited together in Germany to inform political and church representatives on the bad and sad situation in the region of origin of Christianity.

Churches and religious leaders are at the forefront of efforts to mobilize action for a legally binding agreement on world’s climate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris at the end of 2015. The motivation of the WCC for its role in this arena is summarized in the title of its environmental programme: Care for Creation and Climate Justice.