A reflection originally shared at the "Working Together" meeting between the World Council of Churches and specialized ministries, convened 3-4 May in Bossey, Switzerland.
"The soldiers went away because you were watching.”
“I am able to herd my sheep near the military base because I feel safe in the presence of ecumenical accompaniers, and settler harassment is much less when you are around.”
“We feel safe when the ecumenical accompaniers are present.”
Six ecumenical accompaniers participated in a Palm Sunday procession from Bethphage on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, entering Jerusalem with hundreds of faithful from around the world—commemorating the journey taken by Jesus some 2,000 years ago.
Rev. Sally Azar, of the Lutheran Church in the Holy Land, met with ecumenical accompaniers from Ecuador, Finland, and Norway at the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem’s Old City on 3 March.
Alexander Brock, an international development practitioner from Ireland, recently returned from a deployment with the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. On 1 March, he gave an eyewitness account of what it’s like to monitor human rights in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. He was part of a group of 27 ecumenical accompaniers from all over the world.
Hanna Barag, an Israeli woman who has described herself as a “human rights diplomat” for the organization Machsom Watch, has spent decades observing what happens to Palestinians at checkpoints, and it’s—in a word—“de-humanizing,” she says.
A group of Ecumenical Accompaniers completed their service in Palestine and Israel, handing their ministry over to the next wave, and celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the same time.
Twenty-six-year-old Samyah* has no ID card—not Palestinian or Israeli. Born in the West Bank, she once had a Jerusalem ID card after her father but it was revoked. She found out about the revocation when she was 16 and thought had the opportunity to travel with her school to Switzerland. She could not travel. Since then, Samyah and her family have been struggling to regain her Jerusalem ID card.
As Christians around the world look to the Advent season, preparations are in full swing in the place where it all started, Bethlehem, to celebrate that one story that lies at the heart of all Christian traditions.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) completed its annual meeting from 21-26 November, and also commemorated its 20th anniversary.
Heads of churches in Jerusalem, World Council of Churches leaders, partners, and friends gathered in Jerusalem to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.
Here comes the bride. Donned in a wedding gown, Ribhieh Rajabi is walking over a pile of rubble in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem. She’s surrounded by family, friends, journalists, and even strangers who came to show solidarity.
Im Omar—as named after her eldest son—mother of six, must scrape every day for something most people take for granted: water. For her, water is scarce—and it’s directly connected to her family’s livelihood.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) joined other world religious leaders in expressing solidarity with those protesting the closure of the Shuafat Refugee Camp as a form of collective punishment.
The importance of water for Christians around the world cannot be overemphasized. From Genesis 1:1, where we read that “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” to its sacramental role in baptism and the Eucharist, water is integral to the faith.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is looking to its assembly at the end of August in Karlsruhe to raise up the issue of climate justice and underline the need to care for the creation, says the WCC’s acting general secretary, Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca.
In an 8 July letter sent to President Joe Biden, World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca appealed for Biden’s attention to the plight of churches and Christians of the Holy Land.
Biden is scheduled to visit Israel, the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia on 13-16 July.
The 2022 World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel, to be held 15-22 September, will be an opportunity for the world to come together in prayer to end the occupation of Palestine.
In a public statement focused on the Holy Land, the WCC central committee expressed “deep solidarity with the member churches and Christians of the region in their life and work, keeping the Christian faith and witness in the Holy Land alive and vibrant, as well as with all people in the region.”
