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A graduation ceremony marked the end of an intensive course in interreligious studies for seven students from six different countries who lived together at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. The theme of this year’s program was “Health and wholeness of life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”

Iranian rector Ayatollah M. Seyyed Abolhassan Nawab and Ms Zahra Sedigh, from the Iranian Mission to the UN, visited the World Council of Churches (WCC) on 27 July, discussing education and formation, as well as the importance of strengthening the role of interreligious cooperation.  

Der geschäftsführende Generalsekretär des Ökumenischen Rates der Kirchen (ÖRK), Priester Prof. Dr. Ioan Sauca, hat sich am 31. August im Ökumenischen Institut in Bossey mit Dr. Muhammad Bin Abulkarim Al-Issa, dem Generalsekretär der in Mekka ansässigen Islamischen Weltliga, und mit Aamir Javed Sheikh, dem Präsidenten der norwegischen Stiftung „Foundation Dialogue for Peace“, getroffen.

Bringing churches together in a spirit of reconciliation and justice is embodied at Bossey, a message its director brought home as he opened an online conference on ‘teaching ecumenism in the context of world Christianity’.

Rev. Dr Santanu Kumar Patro, registrar of the Senate of Serampore College (University), passed away on 5 May in Calcutta. The news of his death was met with outpourings of grief and gratefulness from students, faculty and friends of seminaries and institutions responsible for theological education in South Asia and beyond.

Women who are leading efforts in peace-building amid growing conflict across the world met online on 23 March, and their candid exchange combined personal inspiration, mutual encouragement—and a clarion call for their prophetic voices to be heard.

On 17 June, six new master students finished their yearlong studies with the graduation ceremony of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey. WCC News met with them at the graduation.

A lively interchange on the rapidly changing landscape of interreligious encounter marked the launch of a new journal at the Ecumenical Centre on Friday, 7 February. The occasion was the unveiling of the new incarnation of Current Dialogue, the pioneering World Council of Churches periodical on interreligious dialogue. Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), welcomed the new publishing arrangement as an historic moment for the ecumenical movement, through which Current Dialogue joins the WCC’s other two academic journals, noting that the journal brings a distinctive ecumenical perspective to the growing field.

With deadline 20 January 2020, the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute at Château de Bossey invites papers for an international conference on ’Teaching Ecumenism in the Context of World Christianity’.

Students sat entranced as the theologian recounted that after serving in the Hitler Youth and the German Army as a “patriot” in World War II, he turned his back on nationalism and the horrors of that conflict.

Kenyan religious leaders, scholars, students and ordinary people have mourned Prof. John Samuel Mbiti, world-renowned Christian philosopher and writer who died on 6 October.

Young students from all over the world were welcomed to the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland on Tuesday for the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Interreligious Studies.
The theme of the 2018/2019 academic year is “Engaging for just and participatory societies - belongingness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam”.

The Shia Muslim student from Canada, the Presbyterian Christian student from India and some of their companions reluctantly set off for an early run on a chilly morning to the Geneva lakeside little knowing what sunrise would bring.

Der Ökumenische Rat der Kirchen (ÖRK) hat von seinen Mitgliedskirchen, Schwesterorganisationen und der weiteren ökumenischen Gemeinschaft Danksagungen und Ermutigungen anlässlich seiner seit 70 Jahren geleisteten Arbeit für christliche Einheit und Aktion übermittelt bekommen.

The WCC continues to receive messages of thanksgiving and encouragement from member churches, sister organizations and the wider ecumenical movement as the fellowship marks 70 years in working for Christian unity and action.

Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.

The archbishop Dr Nathan Söderblom, an ecumenical forerunner and messenger of peace in war-torn Europe, challenged a deeply divided Christianity 100 years ago. Against all odds, the Stockholm Conference on Life and Work in 1925 gathered church leaders at a scale the world had not seen since Nicaea 1600 years earlier. And it did not end there.

Christian, Jewish and Muslim students who attended the World Council of Churches (WCC) 2018 Interreligious Summer School at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey said that learning to break down prejudices about the other was a lasting impression from the six-week course.

As students gathered at the WCC Ecumenical Institute at Bossey for an interreligious summer school, they reflected on what brought them to the institute, and what knowledge and insights they will take home.

In writing a story for the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Elias Crisóstomo Abramides of Argentina, from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is writing the story of his life. His service at the WCC opened for him the gate to meeting and loving “the very good Creation of God”: love, respect and admiration for the life of his neighbours and for all creation.