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Originally published by The Canadian Council of Churches.*

My experience with Israel’s Interior Ministry began more than 25 years ago, whereby I have been seeking an ID card for my wife who hails from the West Bank. I am a Palestinian from East Jerusalem and I have an Israeli ID card—which gives me the status of a foreign resident in the city of my ancestors and where I was born. 

Christine, 23, is from the West Bank. She met a young man from Jerusalem when she was studying at one of the Palestinian universities in the West Bank. As their emotions towards each other grew by time and a sincere love flourished into their hearts, they decided to get engaged. At this point, they didn’t think of any barriers that might stand in front of them. 

“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Mt. 8: 20)

With the death and burial of Prince Philipp, Duke of Edinburgh, and husband of Queen Elizabeth II, of the English and the British Commonwealth throne, a kind of Orthodox Christian witness came into the fore, in the form of Christian Brotherhoods, quite unknown to Greece and the entire Orthodox world. Very few till now in Greece had known that there is also another kind of Orthodox Christian witness, that of the socially oriented and pastorally significant Brother- (and Sister-) hoods, especially in periods of crisis.

Who am I?

Bonhoeffer remembrance, April 2005

Ezek. 37:1-16, based on a Lenten devotional poem from prison

Theodore Gill, Ecumenical Centre Chapel, Geneva, on the 60th anniversary of Bonhoeffer's death.

Two months ago, I would not have spent a Sunday afternoon driving through a deserted city. There were people out and about, walking with children in strollers, jogging, laughing. Some were driving to do errands and buy groceries. Although it was sunny, there was still a somber pall over the city. I am told the same is true of New York and Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and other cities.

Just a click away –Seoul, Brisbane, Juba, Karlsruhe, Nairobi, New York and Jerusalem. We live in a time when communication and information are at our fingertips. Whether it is via smartphones, tablets or laptops, different news sources can be accessed in seconds, the world is moving into our hands - just a click away. The rapid increase in news consumption and production, however, comes at a serious cost — media and communication illiteracy. I´m the first defender of the freedom of expression and freedom of media.

This will be my last weekly posting of a news article from the past week related to violence against women and girls around the world. Following the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches a year ago, I decided to join the WCC movement of #ThursdaysinBlack, to speak out against violence and discrimination by wearing black and by posting on Facebook each week, for the duration of one year.

At a meeting held in Paris, June 25-27, the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) restored formal relations after a hiatus of more than two decades.

‘We call upon all the churches we represent to denounce antisemitism, no matter what its origin, as absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith. Antisemitism is sin against God and man.’ This unambiguous WCC declaration in 1948 has been regularly re-stated over the last 70 years. In the same spirit, the annual commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an opportunity to be welcomed. It focuses a widespread commitment not to forget the Holocaust of the Jewish people (while not excluding remembrance of other genocides) and to help prevent such atrocities in the future.

This Christmas Season I will have concrete places in my mind when I listen to the story of the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. I will think of the Bedouin community in Suyica, near Yatta, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. They live in tents and in caves because they are not allowed to build houses. Together with about 20 Methodists from around the globe representing the World Methodist Council, we visited them in October.

“You are never safe, you never know when they will come.” When Israel issued Ilham with a demolition order for her home in the Palestinian village of Al Walaja last month, she knew that it was not an empty threat.

Ecumenical Accompaniers walk children to school, accompany shepherds, serve as a presence of peace, and share what they see. They are the fruit of the WCC-EAPPI, and offer reflections from a variety of settings and the life around them.

This week we continue celebrating the foundation of the World Council of Churches at the Amsterdam Assembly in 1948. Since its founding 70 years ago, the WCC has held assemblies in Evanston, New Delhi, Uppsala, Nairobi, Vancouver, Canberra, Harare, Porto Alegre and Busan.

Ecumenical Accompaniers from the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (WCC-EAPPI) report that residents, international non-governmental organizations, media, politicians have joined local Palestinian and Israeli peace activists in nonviolence resistance, protesting demolition actions by Israeli forces in the Khan al Ahmar Bedouin community.

When it comes to the stance of churches towards the so-called conflict between Israel and Palestine, it is useful to understand it as a process of grief. The theory of the five stages of grief from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is a creative way to describe the “dying” and “mourning” process of the churches and international community. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was seen by the Western world as a sign of justice for the suffering Jewish people after the Holocaust and centuries of persecution of Jews in Europe. Two elements played a major role in this initial excitement: the historical guilt of Europeans and the fulfilment of biblical prophecies related with the reestablishment of Israel.

Egypt, that ancient and mysterious land where the pyramids of Giza grace the hot desert landscape and the Pharaohs once reigned. A land overflowing with beauty and a historical richness unparalleled in all the globe. Today, it is a place whose regal image has been tarnished by the devastating consequences of revolution, economic decline, and fanatical religious zeal.