Participants in an ongoing “Prophetic Witness for Life, Justice, and Peace Conference” on 14 June in Johannesburg, South Africa, broke into seminars focusing on many facets of justice—climate, economic, racial, gender, and health.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is scheduling a press conference Wednesday 18 June at 12:45-13:20 featuring the leadership of the central committee, including Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, moderator of the WCC central committee; Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley, vice-moderator of the WCC central committee; H.E. Archbishop Dr Vicken Aykazian, vice-moderator of the WCC central committee; and Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay, WCC general secretary, in addition to local church leaders represented by Bishop Sithembele Anton Sipuka of Mthatha Diocese in the Roman Catholic Church, president of the Southern African Council of Churches and the first Catholic to head the ecumenical body in Southern Africa.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) will be held in Belém, Brazil from 10-21 November 2025. Rev. Romeu Martini, Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil, shared how climate change is affecting communities, and his expectations for COP30.
At the World Council of Churches (WCC) conference in Berlin, where theologians, scholars, and faith leaders gather to reflect on religion’s role in a fragmented world, in May 2025, one of the main keynotes focused on the reframing of the perennial struggles over race, class, and power.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) joined global faith leaders on 3 June for "Nourishing Hope: Faith-Based Solutions to Hunger and Environmental Crises," a comprehensive webinar that demonstrated how religious communities are uniquely positioned to address the interconnected challenges of hunger, debt, and climate change. The event, co-hosted with Caritas Internationalis and World Vision International, brought together practitioners and advocates from across continents to share innovative faith-led solutions and build momentum for coordinated action against what speakers called a "moral crisis of the world."
Leaders of English-speaking churches in Geneva held a prayer vigil on 27 May at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, with money donated going towards supporting the work of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.
As the international community works toward achieving gender equality by 2030, faith leaders are stepping forward to address one of the most overlooked barriers to women's empowerment: menstrual stigma. A joint webinar on 4 June from 15:00-16:30 CEST will explore how religious communities can lead transformative change in making menstruation a normal fact of life globally.
Key note address of Bishop Jonas Jonson at the CCIA Consultation on Centenary of Life and Work Conference in Stockholm 1925, Athens, Greece, 19 May 2025.
As Pope Leo XIV presided over the Mass of Inauguration on 18 May, he urged the world to walk toward God and to love one another—a message that resonated deeply with the World Council of Churches (WCC) leaders who attended the mass as well as a private ecumenical audience with Pope Leo on 19 May.
On the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the 1884–85 Berlin Conference that institutionalized the colonial partitioning of Africa, former World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Konrad Raiser delivered opening remarks at a landmark ecumenical gathering in Berlin.
Commission of the Churches on International AffairsDirector’s report at the opening session of the CCIA 60th meeting / Life and Work Centenary Consultation, Athens, 18 May 2025.
Commission of the Churches on International Affairs Moderator’s address at the opening session of the CCIA Life and Work Centenary Consultation, Athens, 18 May 2025.
In his report to the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee, WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay reflected on what it means—amid wars, rumours of wars, violence, trade wars, climate catastrophes, retaliations, and the quest for self-protection and preservation of identity—to be God’s family.
Armenian Heritage Conference, hosted by World Council of Churches in collaboration with Protestant Church in Switzerland, will take place in Bern, Switzerland on 27 – 28 May 2025.
The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem proclaim to the world an Easter message of life and hope. “It is the same message first announced to the women who had come to mourn at Christ's tomb,” the text notes. “The Lord had risen indeed!”
The Sisters of St Joseph of Peace, Catholic nuns located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (US), have spent the past four years filing shareholder resolutions related to Citigroup, urging the parent company of one of the world’s largest investment banks to rethink its financial ties to fossil fuel projects that harm Indigenous communities.
Faith leaders warn that the global concentration of wealth and power has reached "unprecedented" and "alarming" levels, exacerbating inequality, undermining democracy, and accelerating climate catastrophe. The ecumenical call to action came in a joint communique issued today following a three-day meeting in Geneva of the Ecumenical Panel on a New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA).
