As a year of exceptional and increasing conflict draws to a close, and as we pray for peace for all in 2024, “that prospect seems nowhere more remote than for the suffering and traumatized people of Gaza,” said World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay.
"Peace Among the People – Interreligious Action for Peace and Inclusive Communities", keynote address by Peter Prove, director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, World Council of Churches, at the Peace Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, 21 November 2023.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee, meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, on 8-14 November, released a statement that demands an immediate ceasefire, and the opening of humanitarian corridors in Palestine and Israel.
Church leaders in Pakistan are calling for international solidarity and for measures to ensure the safety and security of Christians in Pakistan. Their messages come in the wake of church burnings in the city of Jaranwala, in eastern Pakistan, where 24 churches have been burned, affecting at least 600 families.
A young Christian from the United Kingdom has said that the young generation needs the older generation to work with them to tackle the world's problems, as neither group can do it alone.
The world needs young leadership very badly because those from the older generation have not delivered, the head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has told young Christian, Jewish, and Muslim participants at the Emerging Peacemakers Forum.
WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay offered a reflection during the graduation ceremony on 13 July of the Emerging Peacemakers Forum as young leaders celebrated their two-week long time of collaborating, dialogue, and insight.
Messages of hope related to climate change and global conflicts from renowned global peacemakers have inspired young Christians, Jews, and Muslims at the Emerging Peacemakers Forum, held 5-14 July at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. The young peacemakers have spent nearly 10 days crafting the next generation of peacebuilding.
The forum is organized in partnership between the Muslim Council of Elders, the WCC, and the Rose Castle Foundation.
Media are invited to attend the graduation ceremony of the Emerging Peacemakers Forum on 13 July in the Main Hall of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. The forum, organized in partnership between the Muslim Council of Elders, the World Council of Churches (WCC), and the Rose Castle Foundation, includes 50 young people from 24 countries.
Vigilance is needed to sustain people's acceptance of one another to prevent aberrations such as the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and the Russian-Ukraine war, a UN special adviser has told a group of young Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
A woman who works with youth in Kenya—young people who once turned to heinous crimes—had a group of young Christians, Jews, and Muslims weeping tears of compassion and joy as she recounted her tough upbringing and how she helps turn those youth from crime to community.
Peace is not a given these days, an international group of young Christians, Jews, and Muslims has heard from a woman whose father survived the Holocaust as she stressed the need to talk and listen to one another.
The Christians, Jews, and Muslims laughing and chatting together, learning about peace were not in an aspirational story; they are authentic, live young people having fun at the Emerging Peacemakers Forum.
The World Council of Churches (WCC), the Muslim Council of Elders, and Rose Castle Foundation will host an Emerging Peacemakers Forum on 5-14 July for 50 young men and women working in civil society and international organizations, or for influential people in their societies, at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey.
The World Council of Churches, the Muslim Council of Elders and Rose Castle Foundation are hosting an Emerging Peacemakers Forum for young men and women working in civil society and international organizations at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey.
During the World Council of Churches (WCC) leadership delegation visit to Ukraine in May, an ecumenical prayer service was held in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, on 12 May. The service, led by the WCC leadership, WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay, WCC moderator Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, with participation of members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), took place at St Andrew Orthodox Church in Bucha.
During a noon prayer on 19 April, the World Council of Churches (WCC) called for global solidarity with the people of Sudan as an escalating conflict has plunged many innocent people into a situation in which they are barely able to survive.
After persistently calling for dialogue to end violent anti-government protests, Kenyan religious leaders are welcoming President William Samoei Ruto and opposition leader Raila Amollo Odinga consultations, during which the two have agreed to tackle critical issues troubling the east African nation.
As a “Living Together” celebration in Bagdad opened on 6 March, religious and ethnic leaders from Iraq celebrated diversity and, at the same time, candidly addressed challenges to inclusive citizenship. They were joined by representatives of Iraqi executive and legislative authorities as well as representatives from UN agencies and embassies.
At least 494 religious buildings in Ukraine have been destroyed, damaged, or looted as a result of the Russian invasion—and seizure of religious buildings for use as Russian military bases increases the scale of destruction of religious sites in Ukraine, reports the Institute for Religious Freedom.