News and stories

"We need to emphasize time and again the sense of mutuality and interdependence as the basis of relationships between Christians", said Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa, convener of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN).

On International Women's Day, ecumenical leaders have urged churches to work to end violence against women in its many forms across the world.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has requested its member churches to advocate for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Colombia, the full respect of human rights and the cessation of the so called "Plan Colombia".

Concerned about the security of Christians in Egypt, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has encouraged the churches in the country to continue their involvement in Muslim-Christian dialogue.

"With great hope and deep satisfaction" the World Council of Churches (WCC) has welcomed the news that a Council of Christian Church Leaders of Iraq has been established. "In our view, it is a development that augurs as much for the future of the churches in Iraq as it does for Iraq as a nation," the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit wrote in an 18 February congratulatory message to the members of the new body.

In a service ahead of the launch of the Lenten study series on the struggle to end violence against women "Cries of Anguish; Stories of Hope", the general secretary of the World Council of Churches Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit invited people to reflect on how they might give the bread of relationship rather than the heavy stones of violence to both victims and perpetrators of violence.

Cries of Anguish; Stories of Hope - a series of online Lenten study resources on the struggle to end violence against women will be launched 15 February during a prayer service at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland.

pief.oikoumene.org is a new website launched by the Palestine-Israel Ecumenical Forum geared to providing a springboard for advocacy, public education, and mobilization.

The role of the church in building just peace was highlighted last week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where three World Council of Churches (WCC) advisory groups met to recognize the culmination of the Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) and the forthcoming International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) scheduled for May 2011.

Konrad Raiser, former general secretary of the World Council of Churches (1993-2003), was awarded an honorary doctor's degree by the University of Hamburg's faculty of evangelical theology on 18 January. The title recognizes Raiser's contributions in sharpening the theological profile of the WCC and the momentum he has more than once given to the ecumenical movement as a whole and to the ecumenical awareness of German churches in particular.