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A continuation, not a commemoration: at the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., religious and civic leaders spoke before thousands of demonstrators who turned out despite intense summertime heat on 26 August.

A World Council of Churches Pilgrim Team will be visiting indigenous communities on Standing Rock, particularly along the shore of the Missouri River (Lake Oahe), with portions of visits open to the public online on 25-28 May.

(LWF Communication) – An ecumenical prayer service in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, marked the opening of a four-day consultation of five Christian World Communions discussing the historic importance of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) and its impact on the search for full, visible unity of the church.

On 15 March, a group of Ecumenical accompaniers from the WCC were invited to share Shabbat dinner with the Kol HaNeshama congregation in Jerusalem.

WCC News met with the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr Alexi Chehadeh, who leads the Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East in Damascus, Syria. He is an impressive role model and peacemaker in Syria.

“The Amazon, the green heart of the Earth, is mourning and the life it sustains is withering,” begins a statement released by the World Council of Churches Executive Committee as it met in Amman, Jordan from 17-23 November.

On Saturday in Charlottesville, one woman died and 19 others were injured when a man who, after rallying with white supremacist groups, rammed his car into a crowd. Earlier in the day, two law enforcement officers lost their lives when their helicopter crashed as they patrolled the building crowds.

Climate justice isn't a policy that can simply be thrown away by any president - it’s a moral decision that affects the well-being of millions of people and future generations across the world. Thousands of people are communicating this message via statements, posts and tweets on social media, and even with earnest conversations with their neighbors. Many are from the WCC fellowship, humanitarian groups, churches and communities, and they are bringing a clear - and unified - voice of justice after US President Donald Trump announced on 2 June that his nation would leave the Paris climate accord.

WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit joined other speakers at a side event of the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council on 7 March. The speakers, which also included Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department of External Church Relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, addressed the topic of “Mutual Respect and Peaceful Coexistence as a Condition of Interreligious Peace and Stability: Supporting Christians and Other Communities.”

When the WCC joined the Blue Communities Project on 25 October, water and eco-justice advocates from around the world offered congratulations, while at the same time urging WCC member churches to join the quest for global water and sanitation rights.

The visit of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, H.E. Professor Dr Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, to the World Council of Churches (WCC) last week brought together two premier institutions strongly oriented to leadership in peacebuilding and interreligious dialogue.

Between 7-27 March, more than 100 images with the hash tag #7Weeks4Water were posted by Instagram users who joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) contest. Most of them told stories about water justice, illustrating the Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water,” promoted by the WCC Ecumenical Water Network annually since 2008.

On the world scale of countries with plentiful water, Brazil comes out in the top league. It has 12 percent of the world’s fresh water supplies. Yet Magali do Nascimento Cunha does not see her country scoring so well when it comes to water and sanitation distribution.

The WCC sent an open letter to the Gatestone Institute in response to the institute’s web articles criticizing the WCC’s “Seven Weeks for Water” campaign. The campaign focuses on critical water issues affecting the people of Palestine, particularly in the occupied territories.

A water crisis for Palestinian people was highlighted by the general secretary of the WCC, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, at the launch of the Seven Weeks for Water campaign in Jerusalem.

The WCC Ecumenical Water Network is inviting member churches and supporters to reflect on water during Lent. For many in the world, water is either taken for granted or in desperately short supply.

Today 35 bishops and church leaders from 20 countries gathered in Munich, Germany to discuss the refugee situation and the role of the churches in Europe.