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Hosting refugees, providing food, helping in hospitals, and ringing church bells as a warning when shelling starts—these are some of the many ways churches are responding in Ukraine and bordering countries as the war continues. More than two million people have poured out of Ukraine, and estimates from relief groups show that 18 million people—a third of the country’s population—will need humanitarian assistance.

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.

On 27 March, a hug between a 7-year-old girl, Majida, and her grandmother reflected the bright light of possibility that the ecumenical Humanitarian Corridors project continues to bring to refugees arriving in Italy. The child was waiting with other family members at the Fiumicino Airport in Rome as her grandmother arrived, safely and legally, in Italy from Lebanon.

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.”

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.

It is raining. It is cold and windy. Autumn is in the air in northern Greece. We have just arrived at the Idomeni refugee camp in northern Greece, on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The fast-approaching winter poses as great a threat to the refugees as do the smugglers. In the worst case, winter means death.