Some 1,700 Christians from around 300 denominations have met in Munich for a ‘Together in Europe’ gathering of the Ecumenical Congress promoting unity between Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals.
In a meeting supported by Pope Francis and Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, leaders of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, several Orthodox Churches, Protestant denominations and free evangelical denominations including some Baptists and Pentecostals debated for three days about how to walk towards “encounter, reconciliation and hope in a better future.” Continue reading
Abuse screamed on trams. Polish communities centres daubed with obscenities. People being labelled racist insults in their own home towns. It’s been a bit of depressing week on the intolerance front hasn’t it?
In general, Pope Francis gets high marks for his inter-religious outreach, which has been a core feature of his papacy from the beginning. Shortly after his election in March 2013, for instance, he went to a juvenile detention center in Rome and included two Muslims among the inmates whose feet he washed.
YEREVAN—As a centerpiece of his Papal Visit to Armenia, Pope Francis held an Ecumenical service for peace in Yerevan’s Republic Square, during which he urged Armenia’s youth to be active peacemakers in a world “suffering from persecutions and conflict.”
Pope Francis is expected to avoid using the word “genocide” when he visits a memorial to the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians this weekend.
The general secretary of the World Council of Churches has expressed “shock, outrage and sadness” over the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida on June 12 said to be the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
Shanghai, Kolkata, Jakarta, Tokyo, New York City, Hong Kong, Miami and New Orleans are not cities linked to the geography of the Reformation that was happening 500 years ago in Wittenberg.
Pope Francis and several prominent Evangelical and Pentecostal leaders met in Rome last Friday to discuss areas of mutual agreement and where they respectfully disagreed. The aim of the gathering, which had no official agenda, was to build unity between Christian traditions that have historic enmity.
With a hugely symbolic hug and an exchange of kisses on the cheek, Pope Francis and the grand imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque, which houses a 1,000-year-old university, took a major step toward restoring relations between major branches of the world’s two largest faiths, Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam. The two met privately for 25 minutes in the pope’s private library at the Vatican.
WASHINGTON — An ecumenical event featuring Hillsong United, Lecrae, Michael W. Smith, Josh McDowell, Ravi Zacharias, Francis Chan and other renown evangelical and Catholic speakers and musicians that is set to take place in Washington, D.C. is raising concerns as it seeks to draw a million attendees to “link arms” in unity, including with the Vatican.