News and stories

From the farms and rolling hills of Pennsylvania's serene Amish countryside where five young schoolgirls were killed a year ago, to an immersion into the inner-city violence of Philadelphia, a World Council of Churches Living Letters delegation learned first-hand of the profound tragedy that can suddenly impact everyday life. But they also saw "rays of light" where forgiveness and reconciliation are helping to create a more humane...

Discussions about gun control and small arms trafficking, violence in the streets and against ethnic groups, as well as the engagement by churches in peacemaking activities consumed the first days of a 10-day visit to the United States by an international ecumenical team representing the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Church leaders and communities facing situations of violence in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and New Orleans will share their experiences with an international ecumenical team visiting the United States from 15-23 September. Being from South Africa, Lebanon, Pakistan and Brazil the team members will express the solidarity of churches worldwide with the US churches while learning from their peacemaking efforts concerning urban and gun...

The international community will be looking at Sri Lanka this September, as the European Union reportedly intends to bring its case before the UN Human Rights Council, a body which counts Sri Lanka amongst its members. The Council's 6th session takes place one month after the visit of an international ecumenical team that expressed solidarity with local churches and learned about their peace efforts amid a conflict that has over the past 25...

The World Council of Churches (WCC) will welcome five young people (aged 18-30 years) to serve as interns in its Geneva offices from February 2008 to January 2009. Interns bring valuable experiences to the WCC at the same time as they undertake several modules of ecumenical learning.

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.

The killing of a second Korean Christian hostage in Afghanistan has led the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) to make an urgent call for prayer among the "entire ecumenical community around the world [...] that the killings of innocent people may stop and that these hostages may safely return to their families."

This coming 21 September Christians from Congo to the US, and from Colombia to Switzerland to South Korea will join in prayers during the International Day of Prayer for Peace.

"I come from a wounded Iraq and a severely wounded Baghdad," said the man in black habit standing in front of some 130 silent church representatives from six continents gathered for a peace conference on the Middle East. "The situation in my country is tragic," the man continued. "We were promised freedom, but what we need today is freedom to have electricity, clean water, to satisfy the basic needs of life, to live...

Local churches in Palestine/Israel are looking to the whole fellowship of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to play a stronger role in supporting local churches' struggles for a just peace there. This is the main finding of a delegation led by the Council's general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia that visited Palestine/Israel from 21 to 26 June. A new advocacy forum launched prior to the visit, and ecumenical accompaniment are high on the...