Each year students from all over the world arrive at Bossey near Geneva for a three-month language training course to pave their way for ecumenical studies that follow on straight after. “The title captures the goal of the course,” says Father Lawrence Iwuamadi, the Nigerian priest who studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute.
World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit and a WCC delegation are visiting member churches in China from 7-16 January.
In a brief interview, Tveit describes the joy of uniting with the China Christian Council to begin celebration of the WCC’s 70th anniversary.
Two major crises have marked the months since the WCC called Katalina Tahaafe-Williams to work in Geneva on its migration, indigenous, and multicultural ministry programmes. When she took up the job in October, the European refugee crisis was in full flow. Then in November, terrorists attacked Paris.
In view of the changing global landscape of mission and evangelism, participants in a meeting organized by the WCC and the Council for World Mission explored the concept of evangelism and its life-affirming aspects in the city of Sydney, where the event was held from 5 to 13 September.
Father Ioan Sauca of the Romanian Orthodox Church and Peter Prove, a Lutheran lawyer and international affairs expert from Australia, have been named to key staff positions in the WCC.