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With the aim of monitoring how the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace is unfolding and to develop suggestions for its various initiatives and activities, with a special focus on the Africa region in 2017, the World Council of Churches (WCC) convened a meeting of the reference group of the pilgrimage in Nigeria from 20-27 February.

At the close of the 50th year since promulgation of Vatican II’s declaration on Christian relations with other religions, relations between Christians and Jews, and between Christians and Muslims, are freshly explored in the just-released issue of Current Dialogue.

Since November 2015 the task of representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the WCC in Geneva is in the hands of Archbishop Job of Telmessos, who is convinced: churches need not only to speak, but also to listen to each other. After a year in the office, Archbishop Job answered questions about the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, church unity, and the ecumenical movement.

The worsening refugee situation, which now counts round 65 million people among those fleeing their homes worldwide, calls for the church to be more outspoken, says Trondheim pastor Marianne H. Brekken.

“We had heard that racism continues to be an issue in the United States,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee. “But we did not expect to find it so deep, so wide and so pervasive.”

Violence in the name of religion echoed in the distance, demanding a response, through the November 2015 meeting of the 25-member Executive Committee of the WCC in Bogis-Bossey and nearby Geneva, Switzerland as it planned the work of the Council in the coming years.

The Executive Committee of the WCC released a statement in the lead-up to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris expressing hope that the event will achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.

Despite significant steps taken by the Kenyan government, coordinator of the WCC Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network Dr Samuel Kabue says that “more needs to be done” so that people with disability can enjoy their rights.

“The WCC is grateful for new momentum in collective efforts to manifest our common faith in God the creator and our commitment to common service,” said the WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, as he spoke at the 50th anniversary gathering of a joint WCC-Roman Catholic group.

The WCC is hosting the annual meeting of an international group of people with responsibilities for ecumenical relations in several member churches of the WCC. The spring session of the gathering of the Ecumenical Officers Network is taking the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace” as the inspiration for learning, reflective study and discussion on current developments in the ecumenical movement.

Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.

The WCC Executive Committee, currently meeting in Switzerland, is working to translate the mandate of the WCC 10th Assembly into strategic plans and visible actions, focusing on the churches’ efforts toward a “pilgrimage for justice and peace”.

Nearly one hundred representatives of the German member churches of the WCC met from 16 to 18 January at the Evangelical Academy of Loccum in order to share their experiences from the WCC 10th Assembly and to discuss how they would continue their way together on their pilgrimage of justice and peace.

The WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea, concluded on 8 November, acting to inspire churches to renew their commitments to justice and peace. Through varied encounters and dialogue within the fellowship of churches, the Assembly has made concrete decisions and recommendations setting priorities for the future work of the WCC.

Work for the rights of religious minorities should be done in the spirit of universalism, said the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, in his opening address at a WCC consultation.

Churches and ecumenical groups urge European Union to raise questions with Pakistan government concerning religious intolerance and persecution of religious minorities there.

An international ecumenical consultation in Hong Kong is all set to examine issues of human security and peace with justice in Asia, especially in the context of recent geo-political developments in the Northeast Asia, with a special focus on the Korean peninsula.

World Council of Churches (WCC) participants in the Rio+20 Conference have joined a broad religious coalition in rejecting the official outcome document of the United Nations-sponsored event.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has been playing an active role in the two major events that are taking place in Rio from 12 to 23 June: the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio+20, and the People’s Summit.

The volatile and precarious situation of Christians in the Middle East was of deep concern to the members of the February 2011 meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee, and it will be highlighted in an upcoming conference on Christians in the Middle East to be held in Greece.