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As Christians in Africa joined the celebrations to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a Roman Catholic priest who is involved in ecumenism, stressed the unity of the churches as central to building a concrete response to poor people’s need for justice in the continent.

“The audacity to love as Christ loves,” said the Rt. Rev. Joy Evelyn Abdul-Mohan, is “an imperative, not an option” for churches in today’s world. “When we have our agenda inclusive of all, for the benefit of all, then the cooperation and the commitment of all will be assured, and Christ’s audacious love will become more real to us.”

By rights, it should have been Africa. The World Council of Churches’ (WCC) First Assembly had been held in Europe (Amsterdam), the second in North America (Evanston, USA), the third in Asia (New Delhi). Hopes were raised that Africa would be the next continent to host the council. But questions arose concerning acts of violence and military conflicts in Africa throughout the 1960s, from the Biafran region in Nigeria to Zanzibar and Eritrea, from Algeria to Mozambique and Rhodesia. And so the Fourth Assembly returned to the “safety” of Europe, to Uppsala in Sweden. In one of history’s ironies, Soviet tanks would roll into Prague one month after the assembly’s close.

At ecumenical prayers in the capital city, Juba, South Sudanese church leaders called for unity, peace, and reconciliation, as their nation continued to struggle with instability and conflict, a decade after independence.

A campaign guide for churches concerned about autonomous weapons systems, also known as “killer robots,” has been released in English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese.

Students from the Bossey Ecumenical Institute deepened their understanding of the ecumenical movement as they helped lead prayers during the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee meeting, held via videoconference 9-15 February.