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Climate justice and the integrity of creation have been of concern to churches around the world. While stakeholders in the debate on climate change will gather at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 this year in June, the World Council of Churches (WCC) hopes for discussions to go beyond the narrow understandings of a green economy and the international framework for sustainable development.

Following armed attacks Sunday on Christian churches in Kano and Maiduguri, Nigeria, and in Nairobi, Kenya, leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) have called for people of faith to support afflicted believers through prayer and solidarity.

To mark the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel (WWPPI), Palestinian Christians will celebrate holy communion on Friday, 1 June in the orchard of the historic Cremisan monastery near Bethlehem. It is an area where Israel plans to confiscate land in order to extend its illegal separation barrier outside Jerusalem.

The pre-assembly event of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) concluded in Manila on 27 March with spiritual reflections, prayer and a profound commitment to the churches' work on mission and evangelism.

"€œThe situation of human rights violations remains worrisome in the Philippines. It ranges from vilification, harassment, torture, evacuation due to military operations and other inhumane treatment of political prisoners," Marie Hilao-Enriquez told the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit and other WCC staff during an encounter in Manila, Philippines on 21 March.

Pope Shenouda III, spiritual leader of the Egyptian Coptic Church since 1971 and a president of the World Council of Churches (WCC) from 1991 to 1998, passed away of natural causes on Saturday 17 March. In a letter to the church dated 18 March, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit paid tribute to Pope Shenouda’s unwavering pursuit of Christian unity and peace throughout the Middle East and the world.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has admired the Taizé community’s ecumenical approach to spirituality though “prayer, singing and silence”. “As we all work towards Christian unity, Taizé shows us how to be guests in prayer and overcome our divisions with humility,” said Tveit.

On International Women’s Day, 8 March, staff based in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva organized special prayers and programmes to acknowledge achievements of the ecumenical organizations in the area of gender justice and to celebrate their struggles together as a community of women and men.