Search results

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 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.

In a sermon at the Trinity Church in Oslo, Norway on 9 December, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit reflected on peacemakers: those who create trust and foster good relations, those who try to bring out the best in us, those who attempt to solve conflicts.

Last week, young Jewish, Muslim and Christian students learned about communication and peacebuilding during a workshop at the Ecumenical Centre, all with the hope of serving as peacemakers in their own contexts. The session was led by Marianne Ejdersten, director of WCC Communication.

He earned the title “Green Patriarch” as a religious leader addressing alarming environmental issues over at least two decades. In 2008, Time Magazine named His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as one of 100 Most Influential People in the World, for “defining environmentalism as spiritual responsibility”.

Encouragement, inspiration and storytelling animated the plenary discussion of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace.

Christians need a "spirituality of resistance" to face oppression, violence and experiences of defeat, the WCC general secretary said in an address at Germany’s biggest Protestant gathering.