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World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay continued his visit in Lebanon on 21 March, focusing on meeting with heads of churches to pray and work together. 

Faith-based and humanitarian groups across the world were setting in motion appeals for aid and prayers as response expands in the wake of the devastating earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey on 6 February.

On 15 December, Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, acting general secretary of the World Council of Churches paid a visit to His Beatitude John X, Patriarch of the Antioch and All the East at the patriarchal residence in Balamand, Lebanon.  

The WCC Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration issued a communique on 9 April calling for the release of two metropolitans of Aleppo, His Eminence Boulos (Yazigi), from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, and His Eminence Mor Youhanna Gregorios (Ibrahim) from the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East.

The WCC Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration is meeting from 5-10 April at the Patriarchal Monastery of Our Lady of Balamand in Lebanon.

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.

His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East and Supreme Head of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church, concluded a maiden apostolic visit to the Sultanate of Oman. The highlight of the five-day visit was the consecration of the new church, Mor Shmouni, in Ghala, Muscat, Oman, on 10 May.

Orthodox primates have attended a meeting chaired by the Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, in Chambésy, Geneva, Switzerland, and set a June date for a larger Orthodox convocation, the Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church.

The WCC remembers today, 24 April, the 1.5 million Armenian victims – children, women and men – who died 100 years ago.

The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said that “fervent prayer offered by Christians around the world” was answered with release of Greek Orthodox nuns kidnapped by rebels in the Syrian Christian town of Maaloula.

For the first time in their history, the patriarch of the Antiochian Orthodox Church has asked the believers to adorn the traditional Palm Sunday processions with black ribbons tied on candles rather than the usual white ribbons expressing their sadness because of the two abducted church leaders from Aleppo, Syria.