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World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed grave concern at plans and initiatives for the development of yet another Israeli settlement in the West Bank, in the Ush Ghurab area, next to Beit Sahour. 

His Beatitude Theophilos III, Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Palestine and Jordan, and His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, arrived in Gaza on 22 June for a pastoral visit. They are accompanied by His Excellency Dr Josef D. Blotz, grand hospitaller of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, together with representatives of Malteser International.

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church is breaking ground this week on a new facility to house its archival collections, on a 3.5-acre property in Oakwood, Georgia, that was the former home of the Diocese of Atlanta’s St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church. Site preparation work was scheduled to begin June 22 on renovations of the former St. Gabriel’s building and an expansion project that will turn the site into the first permanent home for The Episcopal Church Archives since 2021. The $4.5 million project is expected to be completed by spring 2027. The Episcopal Church Archives preserves documents and artifacts detailing centuries’ worth of church history. For the past five years, the archives have occupied a temporary warehouse in Austin, Texas. The church previously had leased space from the Seminary of the Southwest for 60 years. The new facility in Oakwood, about 45 minutes from Atlanta, will include offices, a reading room and 75% more storage space than the current facility in Austin, Lawrence Hitt II, an Executive Council member from the Diocese of Colorado, told other members of the church governing body at its meeting last week. Hitt, who chairs Executive Council’s Governance & Operations Committee, also leads the church’s Archives Advisory Committee. The project is the culmination of a 20-year effort to find a new home for The Episcopal Church Archives. Its collections include letters, diaries, photographs, motion pictures, plans, maps, certificates of ordination, journals of every diocese, various periodicals and magazines, church newspapers, paintings and parish histories. General Convention first passed a resolution in 2006 initiating the search. Early plans involved building a new facility on a property the church purchased in Austin, but in 2018, the church chose instead to sell the undeveloped lot and make a temporary move into leased warehouse space. In January 2024, Executive Council authorized negotiations for a potential long-term lease of space at the DeKoven Center in Racine, Wisconsin, but later that year, church leaders broadened their scope to research a range of potential sites for consideration. In June 2025, the church announced it had chosen the property in the Diocese of Atlanta as the new site. It had been vacant since the former St. Gabriel’s Church had ceased operations in October 2023.

[Religion News Service] From 1830 to 1860, tens of thousands of enslaved people disembarked ships at Richmond’s Manchester Docks, an entry point into a bondage system that built Virginia’s wealth and shaped the city’s history. Shackled together, the enslaved people trudged along a muddy trail connecting the docks to the city’s auction house, where they were sold and bought as property. Today, the path, known as the “slave trail,” is part of a citywide walking tour exploring Richmond’s role as a major hub of the domestic slave trade. As about 20 Virginians marched in line, in silence, over the muddy trail on June 13 — some clinging to one another to understand the experience of enslaved people who walked the trail in chains — a gospel singer performed the African American spiritual “Wade in the Water” alongside them. Walking silently, Renee Munford, who is Black, said she felt her ancestors. The 65-year-old wondered what they thought as they walked, whether they were afraid, confused or both. At some point, she cried. “Every time I looked out at the water, all I could see was people coming in on ships and disembarking, and just in a frenzy, so my heart bled for that,” she said. The silent walk was the first part of a historical and spiritual pilgrimage through Richmond led by two local Episcopal churches. The gathering, called “Walking With the Enslaved: The Church’s Role in Slavery Pilgrimage,” seeks to cover the city’s racial history from the steps of Virginia’s state Capitol to a notorious 19th-century slave jail to Richmond’s first African church. The daylong retreat grew out of a partnership between St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Virginia’s largest Episcopal parish that was once attended by Confederate army Gen. Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, one of the South’s oldest Black Episcopal churches, founded in 1861 by enslaved and freed Richmonders. The two congregations designed the experience centered on stories of enslaved people and enslavers, prayer and African American spirituals, which they hope will make for a transformative and eye-opening encounter for all who take part. Just as the country prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — and celebrated Juneteenth, the commemoration of when enslaved people of Galveston got news of their liberation on June 19, 1865 — these Episcopalians are trying to reckon with the role of their city and their denomination in slavery as a founding reality of the United States. The churches’ collaboration reflects both the Episcopal Church’s racial reconciliation focus, announced in 2016, by then-Presiding Bishop Michael Curry — the first African American to lead the denomination nationally — and a broader citywide effort to confront the city’s slave-trading past. St. Paul’s and St. Philip’s, both of whose histories were shaped by Richmond’s role as a major slave-trading center and the capital of the Confederacy, are hoping to translate these efforts into personal transformation. Before they embarked on the pilgrimage, the group gathered for an introduction session at St. Philip’s. Nikki Fernandes, one of the tour’s docents, reminded them of the day’s spiritual goal. “We hope you leave this pilgrimage with something, and that the Holy Spirit will guide what that something is,” said Fernandes, a Virginia native and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. Walking through these historic sites is more likely to transform people and help the history solidify in their minds than something less immersive, said Jerry Gilbert, one of the pilgrimage’s co-chairs and a vestry member at St. Paul’s. “That may be what people would call the ancestors talking to you, or the place talking to you. … But I think it really happens because I’ve felt it happen,” Gilbert told RNS in an April interview. Many participants had heard about the pilgrimage through the churches. The project started at St. Paul’s and took off after the congregation reached out to St. Philip’s to collaborate. Gilbert said the church needed a “nonwhite majority” partner to improve the walks. “We knew that sometimes white privilege is very blind to seeing all of the aspects of a situation when race is involved,” he said. St. Paul’s, perched on Richmond Hill near the Virginia Capitol, traces its roots to Monumental Church, established in 1814 by prominent Richmonders — “nearly all” enslavers, according to the church’s website. During a tour stop on Richmond Hill, Glyn Hughes, another docent, stressed that the freedom ideals that fueled America’s founding collided with Virginia’s reliance on slave trading and its leaders’ affiliation with Episcopal and Presbyterian churches. In front of the state Capitol, which once held church services for Presbyterians and Episcopalians but also served as the Confederate States Congress during the Civil War, Hughes invited participants to “think about how they were mingling Christian values to their ideals.” After the 2015 killing of nine Black worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, St. Paul’s started examining its own racist past. Five years later, the church removed Confederate symbols from the sanctuary, shedding the most visible reminders of its support for the Confederacy and cutting off its embrace of Lost Cause ideology after the Civil War. St. Philip’s, nestled in Richmond’s North Side, has served as a refuge for Black Richmonders through the Civil War, the Jim Crow era and today. Despite its prominence for the city’s Black Episcopalians, the church didn’t gain full representation at the diocesan convention until 1937. The churches’ partnership has been “transformational,” said Crystal Green, a co-chair of the project and a member of St. Philip’s. “It’s part of a healing process that is 400 years in the making, so it’s transformed our lives, our worship styles, and it’s also built a lifetime of friendships.” Beginning at the “slave trail” shapes participants’ experience of the pilgrimage’s nine remaining stops, organizers noted. The recovered stories of Black Richmonders also ensure participants center the perspectives of enslaved people during the pilgrimage. At the fifth […]

An international colloquium, "Decolonizing Ecumenical Hermeneutics,” set for 25–26 June, is being organized by the Wittenberg Center for Advanced Studies, World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order, Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, and Faculty of Theology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Elaine McArdle

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The annual gathering offered Unitarian Universalists multiple connection points.

[Diocese of Alabama] St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church in Chelsea, Alabama, broke ground on June 14 for its first permanent church building after nearly two decades of worshiping in borrowed and temporary spaces. Construction on the church is expected to begin in July and will take about eight months to complete. When finished, it will become the first permanent brick-and-mortar worship space owned by the parish since its founding in 2007. Dozens of clergy and parishioners gathered on the church’s campus on King’s Home Road for the liturgical groundbreaking ceremony, celebrating the culmination of years of fundraising, planning and prayer. The new building will stand on a 20-acre property owned by the Diocese of Alabama, where St. Catherine’s has worshiped in temporary structures donated by Asbury Methodist Church in 2017. The parish now averages 40 worshippers each Sunday and has outgrown its temporary worship space. Church leaders say the new nave will give the growing congregation room to expand its ministries and welcome more worshippers. The 2,555-square-foot church will accommodate up to 150 people, including seating for 135 in the nave. The traditional design features a steeply pitched roof, pointed-arch windows reminiscent of traditional church architecture and a large floor-to-ceiling window behind the altar that frames views of the surrounding woods and brings the natural landscape into the worship space. For many parishioners, one of the project’s most significant achievements is that it will be built debt-free. Chris Stricklin, head of St. Catherine’s building committee and former senior warden, said the congregation established a building fund about three years ago and began working with diocesan leadership to make the project a reality. The fund grew through generous parishioner donations, memorial gifts and a $150,000 contribution from the Diocese of Alabama, enabling the parish to raise the $900,000 needed for construction without financing. “We wanted to create something that parishioners would be proud of not only today, but 30 years from now,” Stricklin said, while also ensuring the project remained financially responsible. Drawing a parallel to Jacob’s dream described in Genesis 28:10-17, Alabama Bishop Glenda Curry, who officiated the ceremony, used the biblical story to frame the congregation’s journey from a fledgling worshiping community to a parish preparing to build its first permanent church. “Since 2007, this community has come together based on prayers and dreams beyond anyone’s expectations, and look what you have done,” Curry said. “You have come to the place where you are ready to make exactly what Jacob did, a place that will be a gate from earth to heaven and that is filled with the goodness of God that will be a symbol to everybody riding down this road, that this is God’s land, God’s place, God’s earth, and that you are servants.” She continued: “This is the house of God and the gate of heaven.” For the Rev. Dillon Green, St. Catherine’s rector, the new church will provide more room for parish life while creating a more visible presence in the community, helping welcome newcomers and serving as a lasting witness to The Episcopal Church in Chelsea. “The location itself is beautiful, surrounded by God’s creation, and it will be more visible from the road,” he said. “As we often say, we worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. This gives us an opportunity to build a structure that reflects what we value and love about The Episcopal Church — a place shaped by intention, thought, prayer, tradition, beauty and goodness.” Green said he hopes the new church will serve as a visible reminder of the parish’s presence in Chelsea and invite newcomers to explore the congregation. Founded by a group of Episcopalians, St. Catherine’s began as a monthly Bible study as part of the Diocese of Alabama’s Decade of Evangelism program, which sought to start a new church every three years. The young congregation soon found a temporary home in a vacant 75-year-old Church of God building that had sat unused for more than a decade. After extensive cleaning and repairs, members painted the church’s front door red and held their first Sunday worship service on Feb. 3, 2008. Later that month, the diocese formally recognized St. Catherine’s as a worshiping community at the diocesan convention. As the parish grew, volunteers converted an abandoned trailer into ministry space before church leaders turned their attention to the King’s Home Road property. Two temporary buildings donated by Asbury Methodist Church were later moved to the site and renovated to serve as a worship space, classrooms, offices, a nursery and other ministries. The congregation continues to worship in those buildings today. Looking back on Sunday’s ceremony, Green said he was mindful of the generations of parishioners whose prayers, sacrifices and generosity helped bring the project to fruition. “It was incredibly meaningful,” he said. “I feel very honored and blessed to have been part of this project and to have been invited to help bring it to life. I could feel the presence of those who have been here, as well as those who have gone on to be with the Lord. Their prayers, sacrifices and love helped make this possible. In many ways, it felt like they were still present with us, sharing in the joy of seeing this vision become a reality.”

[Archbishop of Canterbury] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally met with Layan Nasir, the 26-year-old Palestinian Anglican woman who has spent three periods in Israeli administrative detention and prison over the last five years. Nasir, who is a member of St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Birzeit in the West Bank, was released from Israel’s Damon Prison in May. Nasir’s parents, Lula and Sami, welcomed the archbishop to their home during her June 21 visit to Birzeit. Nasir told Mullally about her experience and its impact on her. Mullally prayed for Nasir and her family and assured her that many Church of England members have also been praying for her. Nasir’s case has been the subject of significant advocacy and prayer from global Christian organizations, including from around the Anglican Communion, due to her being the only Palestinian Christian woman held in Israeli detention during much of the last five years. Mullally’s visit with Nasir was part of a five-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Read the entire article here.

The Episcopal Church, as part of a series of Ecumenical and Interreligious webinars, featured the World Council of Churches (WCC) staff in a panel discussion. The WCC staff introduced the WCC to an audience largely from the US as well as from other nations across the world. 

Churches in Kenya urged the government to listen to the voice of the citizens, as the denominations remembered the citizens killed during the Gen-Z protests in 2024. Churches held an interdenominational memorial service at the Nairobi Baptist Church, Ngong Road on 21 June.