The executive committee of the World Council of Churches has announced their decision to extend the contract of Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, the current WCC general secretary, through to the time when a new general secretary takes office.

Can saints and martyrs – or simply Christians who lived exemplary lives – help unite and focus the churches in the C21st century? An international group of experts will discuss this and related questions at a symposium in Italy.

As the world is rocked by financial and other crises, the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee will meet in Lübeck, Germany on 23-26 September 2008 to look at responses from faith communities.

A global conference on the concept of "Promised Land" that aired different theological approaches to this key issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has given church leaders and theologians new views to take home to their churches.

Organisers of the International Day of Prayer for Peace, which is observed on 21 September 2008, say that record numbers of churches, groups and individuals will be joining in all across the world.

The destruction of ethnic Georgian communities in South Ossetia, the deep wounds to local society and war damage to the capital city confronted a delegation from the World Council of Churches on the second half of a 3-7 September 2008 pastoral visit to Georgia and Russia.

A pastoral delegation sent by the World Council of Churches to Georgia and Russia in the wake of the bitter conflict there has not been able to get safe passage to visit South Ossetia from the Georgian side of the ceasefire line.

A pastoral delegation from the World Council of Churches is visiting Russia and Georgia today. Participants will listen to churches in both countries, encourage efforts for peace and visit displaced people and church aid programmes.

The future of the World Council of Churches lies in playing to its strength of giving those less fortunate in the world a voice, a former Dutch church leader has told a gathering in Amsterdam to commemorate the WCC's 60th anniversary.

Twenty Christian and Muslim women will meet together in Gothenburg, Sweden, at the beginning of next month, as part of an ongoing practical dialogue and conflict transformation process called 'Moving towards peace through religion'.