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Ecumenical & Interfaith
The World Council of Churches (WCC) Executive Committee is meeting at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey this week from June 7-12, focusing on unity, renewal of the WCC strategic plan and financial strategy, the building project, preparations for the 11th Assembly and observance of WCC’s 70th anniversary.
The United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), a long-time Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) global partner, joined the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) requesting prayers for an end to the ongoing violence in Marawi City, on the island of Mindanao.
Terrorists attacked Christians last Friday in Egypt’s western desert, near Minya, initially killing 28 and injuring 23. As of today, the death count has risen to 35. The terrorists, dressed in military fatigues, included 8-10 men who attacked a tourist bus traveling to St. Samuel the Confessor Monastery in Samalout.
The Reformation was a defining moment 500 years ago but can also serve as an inspiration for the next five centuries, South African Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has told tens of thousands of people at the German Protestant Kirchentag, or church festival.
Former United States president Barack Obama joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in front of tens of thousands of people on 25 May, the first full day of Germany’s biggest Protestant gathering, the Kirchentag, or church festival.’
In its commitment to provide a variety of opportunities and platforms designed to build and foster relationships with people of other religious traditions, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s office of Interfaith Relations is continuing its new Facebook Live series, “Third Thursdays — Multifaith Conversations on Concerns of Our Time.”
The May 18 conversation will be the fourth live broadcast in the interfaith office’s new, monthly series, “Third Thursdays — Multifaith Conversations on Concerns of Our Time.” The format is interactive, with brief presentations by the speakers, time for them to engage one another with questions, and the opportunity for participants to post questions of their own.
On Thursday, April 20, at noon EDT on the PC(USA)’s Facebook page, as part of its “Third Thursdays” series, ruling elder Rick Ufford-Chase, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s associate for interfaith formation and co-director of the PC(USA)’s Stony Point Center, welcomed as his dialogue partners Chief Dwaine Perry and Two Clouds, both of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation, which is located about thirty miles northwest of New York City in the Ramapough Mountains.
The brutal attacks on two churches in Alexandria and Tanta on Palm Sunday with more than 40 victims are not the first attacks on Christians in Egypt. In January, the so-called Islamic State declared threat on Coptic Christians and killed eight. In December 2016, a blast at the Cathedral in Cairo killed 30 people.
Though we often hear only the dark and disturbing stories coming out of the Middle East, on February 26 there was an historic moment of celebration. The Presbyterian Church in Tripoli and the National Evangelical (Presbyterian) Synod of Syria and Lebanon (NESSL) ordained the Rev. Rola Sleiman as the first Arab woman to serve as a Minister of Word and Sacrament.
