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"God’s grace and Your Holiness’ genuine commitment has made Your first year as Spiritual Head of the Russian Orthodox Church a blessed and fruitful period, a year of great achievements in all fields of life of the Russian Orthodox Church," wrote WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in a letter to Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow and All Russia on 1 February.

By Juan Michel (*)

By Ranjan Solomon (*)

"Telling Peace" is a collection of liturgical resources for the four Sundays of Advent. It is the second in a series of collections from different regions of the world, prepared in the framework of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation 2011 .

By Walter Altmann (*)

"Profound sorrow" and "most sincere condolences" for the passing away of Patriarch Pavle of Serbia, the spiritual leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, were expressed by the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. Patriarch Pavle died on Sunday, 15 November, at the age of 95.

As nations are spelling out their bargaining positions for the negotiations on a new international climate deal to take place in Copenhagen next month, churches around the world are trying to ring home the message that climate protection is an ethical and spiritual issue.

Resettlement of people displaced by the consequences of climate change was highlighted as a major concern for churches at a gathering of ecumenical representatives from Asia and the Pacific region.

Interview by Martin Hoegger (*)

Twenty years ago in East Germany, "Christian hope and perseverance contributed significantly to the fall of the Berlin Wall", said World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. Commenting on the 20th anniversary of the event that brought to an end the "cold war era", Kobia stressed: the people who "gathered in the churches and became the nucleus for the movement of change […] taught us that Christian faith can inspire a resistance movement against fatalism and despair - a lesson which is as important today as it was twenty years ago".