Search results

“I cannot forget the poignant memories of the march when thousands of refugees set out from Budapest, Hungary, towards Austria, and finally reached the other side of the border aboard buses provided by the Hungarian government,” said Bishop Tamas Fabiny of the Lutheran Church in Hungary, vice-president of the Lutheran World Federation.

It was a peace hike inspired by the biblical story of Emmaus, crisscrossing part of the Holy Land, following the footsteps of Jesus.

With aspirations to learn and contribute to the work of the WCC inter-religious dialogue and cooperation department, Matias Ikkala from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland has commenced working this week as a WCC intern.

As young people help to facilitate the meeting of the WCC's governing body, they are pursuing a collective pilgrimage of their own.

Leaders of historic faith communities across Europe have gathered in Geneva to consider the role of inter-religious dialogue and cooperation in addressing social divisions and opportunities. On 13 May, the conference focused on a round-table symposium addressing the theme “Societies in Transition”.

Youth representing the WCC addressed the theme of justice and peace at the 16th Baptist Youth World Conference in Singapore. Justice and peace remain a concern for the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), according to organizers of the conference, which brought together more than 2,000 young Baptists in Singapore.

The World Council of Churches seeks young communication professionals from its member churches and ecumenical partners to work for the upcoming 10th Assembly, from 23 October to 10 November 2013 in Busan, Republic of Korea.Â

“As women, we have a bond that helps us to engage in interfaith dialogue at the grassroots level in communities. Together we can identify the issues that concern all of us,” said the Rev. Krise Anki Gosal from the Christian Evangelical Church in Minahasa, Indonesia.

By George Arende (*)

The “dignity of work” or “decent work” in the context of a values-based response to globalization was at the core of a recent international inter-religious seminar hosted by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC).

By Aneth Lwakatare (*)

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit will pay an official visit to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, on 27-29 June.

An international ecumenical delegation visiting Turkey at the end of November has encouraged the country's authorities to improve the situation of religious minorities. The exercise of religious freedom, the legal status of churches, including property issues, and the right to religious education were on the agenda.

Dispelling the myth of "a little peaceful country", an international ecumenical Living Letters team visited Uruguay and discovered how violence manifests itself at the levels of family life, the state and youth, and how the churches in this South American country seek to overcome it.

Ideas for "bringing unity down to earth", "communicative action" and a "theology of the wilderness" were among the winning entries submitted for an essay contest on Prospects for Ecumenism in the 21st Century. The winners, two women and four men, come from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

War-torn Sri Lanka is to receive the first of a series of ecumenical "living letters" teams which will visit Christian communities facing situations of violence in different regions of the world in the run up to the 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation being organized by the World Council of Churches.

By Fredrick Nzwili (*)

by Keith Clements (*)

By Elsa Tamez (*)