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The Romani people, also known as the Roma, migrated from northwest India 1,500 years ago. Once they arrived in Europe, they spread across the continent from the Balkan region. Now Romani live worldwide, though principally in Europe.

At a time of increased divisions within churches and within rapidly changing societies, Christians are called, more urgently than ever before, to model the values of reconciliation, justice and peace. That’s why a group of theologians and church leaders from different denominations have been meeting near the German city of Augsburg to work together on two documents calling for much closer collaboration in the tasks of peace-building and the care of migrants and refugees.

Protecting human freedom and dignity is a vital contribution to peace-building by religious communities, said Ecumenical Patriarch His All-Holiness Bartholomew I as he spoke at the Al-Azhar International Peace Conference on 27-28 April in Egypt.

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”.

On a visit to Romania from 16 to 18 June during which he addressed a meeting of the Faith and Order Commission, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit paid formal visits to Romanian President Klaus Werner Johannis, and Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church.