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The World Council of Churches (WCC) participated in an international conference dedicated to the theological legacy of Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, one of the most influential Orthodox theologians of the modern ecumenical movement.

As the World Council of Churches (WCC) cohosted a webinar on World Food Day, observed 16 October, those gathered shared new initiatives, as well as the challenges related to hunger in today’s world. Co-organizers included the UN special rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation, Geneva Environment Network, and World Vision International.

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church has found a prospective buyer for its 12-story office building in New York, New York, and is finalizing a tentative plan to move out of the longtime church headquarters, based on sale negotiations authorized on Oct. 19 by Executive Council, the church’s governing body between General Conventions. The buyer has not been named and the price has not been revealed, but the impending sale, if completed, would mark the culmination of decades of discussions about whether to maintain the current denominational headquarters or downsize in another location. The Episcopal Church Center in Midtown Manhattan is commonly referred to as “815” because of its street address, 815 Second Ave. A quarter of the proceeds from its sale will be set aside to pay for temporary offices in Manhattan and, eventually, to “fund costs associated with a new permanent location for the Church Center in a metropolitan area or state to be determined,” according to the resolution adopted by Executive Council. The rest of the proceeds, 75%, is to be placed in a new trust fund that will distribute grants for church planting, redevelopment and revitalization as part of Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s strategic framework for the church’s future, which also was adopted by Executive Council during a one-day meeting in the headquarters building. “I think it’s really the opportunity to put our money where our mouth is, and say we’re going to repurpose an asset that we have that has been given to us as a legacy, and we’re going to use it to plant seeds for the future,” Rowe told Episcopal News Service after Executive Council’s votes. “This is essentially saying we’re going to sell the house in order to plant new churches and revitalize our congregations, and I think it sends a great message to the church.” The Episcopal Church Center includes 146,000 square feet of space, but in recent years, much of the churchwide staff has worked remotely in locations across the United States and Europe. Less than half the building is now occupied by church operations or affiliated organizations. In 2012, bishops and deputies at General Convention voted in favor of pursuing a new headquarters. The resolution said simply: “It is the will of this Convention to move the Church Center headquarters away from the Church Center building at 815 2nd Avenue, New York City.” Despite the 2012 resolution, planning for such a relocation never got off the ground. Chief Financial Officer Christopher Lacovara researched what it has cost the church to keep the building in the years since that vote. “If we had sold 815 Second Ave. following the 2012 General Convention resolution, invested the proceeds in the endowment and avoided the losses incurred by operating the building since then, we would now have $85 million in additional funds,” Lacovara said in a written statement to ENS. In June 2026, Executive Council voted to hire New York-based Denham Wolf Real Estate Services to market the 63-year-old building for a possible sale. “In July through September 2026, the DFMS conducted a broad marketing process and received numerous offers to sell the building for cash,” the council said in documentation supporting the vote, referring to the church’s corporate entity, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Under the pending sale, the church would have access to one floor of the current headquarters through 2027 while it arranges to relocate to new offices. House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris, in her opening remarks to Executive Council, said the building’s sale raises the question, “what are we called to sustain?” “Our faithfulness will not be measured by whether we preserved a certain address, but by whether our decisions have enabled the church to serve God’s Mission, and that question … goes well beyond the matter of this building,” Ayala Harris said.

Right now, tens of thousands of people across the United States are in immigration detention, where rights violations are rampant, and the Trump administration is signaling that it intends to accelerate its detention and deportation campaign. “We came here hoping to find safety,” said 45 men who are detained in a privately owned detention center in Folkston, Georgia in an ...

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The post Take Action: Demand Accountability and Guardrails as Trump Administration Subjects Growing Numbers of People to Rights Violations in Immigration Detention appeared first on CWS.

[Anglican Communion News Service] The Diocese of Seoul in the Anglican Church of Korea hosted the bishops’ meeting of the Council of Churches in East Asia. The council gathers church leaders from Anglican traditions together annually, with member churches rotating the host role. This year, the bishops’ spouses were invited to attend the meeting. The Oct. 15-19 meeting centered on the theme “Seeds of the Gospel: Mission in East Asia. The theme drew from the parable of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:32: “Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” Bishops were present from the Episcopal Diocese of Taiwan, the Church of the Province of South East Asia, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church of Japan), Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Church of Hong Kong), the Episcopal Church in the Philippines and the Church in the Province of Myanmar. Associates from the Anglican Church of Australia and Iglesia Filipina Independiente also participated. Read the full article here.

United Methodist Bishop Ande I. Emmanuel presented 48 motorcycles to district superintendents in the Nigeria Episcopal Area to ease travel challenges.

After many months of preparation, the Leadership Gathering is set to take place this week in Canada to help imagine The United Methodist Church of tomorrow. Here are answers to frequently asked questions.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay will speak during a conference in the Netherlands hosted by the Global Network for Public Theology and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe on Oct. 19 presented publicly for the first time his sweeping, point-by-point strategic vision for The Episcopal Church, titled “Our Courageous Witness,” that combines Christian witness in the public square, greater support for dioceses and congregations, and structural and financial changes intended to sustain the church for years to come. The 15-year framework, which is expected to guide a restructured triennial churchwide budget for 2028-30, was endorsed in a vote by Executive Council, the church’s governing and oversight body between meetings of General Convention. The council adopted the plan unanimously without discussion during a livestreamed session. The council, attending a one-day meeting at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, had been one of a select group of key church stakeholders who had provided previous feedback to earlier drafts of the strategic framework, including at the council’s private retreat meeting in June in Puerto Rico. It has been in development by Rowe and his staff for much of this year, though many of its component details reflect changes that have been underway since Rowe took office as the denominational leader in November 2024. Rowe spoke for about a half hour before the vote to detail some of the key components of the plan, which is not being released in printed form. “We can be faithful to God in the here and in the now,” Rowe said in his presentation. “What does that mean for us? What does that mean for the church? How do we position ourselves to meet the needs of the time and God’s call on us now in this time and place?” Rowe then outlined the plan’s three strategic priorities — “ways in which we’ll reorient our work as a churchwide body toward the work of being the risen body of Christ in the world.” The plan’s three priorities are “Witness: A Christianity Worth Proclaiming,” “Support: Capacity Where It’s Needed” and “Sustain: A Church Built to Last.” Tied to the three priorities are 10 action steps, led or facilitated by the churchwide staff, to achieve a range of goals, such as reducing the church’s costs, increasing the church’s visibility and collaborating with dioceses so that local leaders can focus more on Christian ministry in their communities. The action items for “Witness” include developing a “churchwide evangelism and visibility campaign” that will promote The Episcopal Church more widely, a step that church leaders hope will help to stem the decline in membership and attendance that has affected all mainline Protestant denominations in recent decades. A related action item is to “elevate the voice of The Episcopal Church in the public square.” Some of this work already has been put in motion under the new staff structure Rowe implemented starting from his first days in office. Many of the church’s departments are now grouped into two core divisions, Mission Program, led by the Rev. Lester Mackenzie; and Public Policy, Partnership and Witness, led by Rebecca Blachly. The biggest changes in that staff realignment occurred in February 2025, when Rowe announced that 16 employees accepted early retirement incentives, 14 others were laid off and 13 vacant positions were left unfilled. Under Rowe, the churchwide staff has also added employees in several newly created positions. The presiding officers have chosen to leave the canonical position of chief operating officer vacant, but Rowe has created a new role of chief administrative officer and named Bishop Jose McLaughlin, who stepped down as bishop of Western North Carolina this year, to take the position. Other newly hired staff members have been laying the foundation for some of the work outlined in Rowe’s strategic plan. Chief Financial Officer Chris Lacovara, for example, has been a central figure in updating the church’s financial systems and seeking “cost improvements” since he was hired in March 2025. He has also been involved in talks of selling the church’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters. Later in the day’s meeting, Executive Council voted to authorize negotiations with a prospective buyer. The presiding bishop chairs Executive Council, and the House of Deputies president serves as its vice chair. Its 38 other voting members are a mix of bishops, other clergy and lay leaders. Twenty are elected by General Convention to staggered six-year terms, or 10 new members every three years. The Episcopal Church’s nine provinces elect the other 18 to six-year terms, also staggered. The sale of the Episcopal Church Center is incorporated into the action items Rowe presented under the strategic framework’s “Sustain” priority, and Rowe has advocated for proceeds from the potential sale to be invested in a fund that will support a more robust church planting and revitalization effort. Other related action items include structural changes to make church governance more efficient and a new approach to churchwide grant-making that will emphasize strategic investments with measurable results. The “Support” priority has been central to Rowe’s stated vision since he was elected and confirmed as presiding bishop in June 2024. In his acceptance speech at the 81st General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, Rowe spoke of refocusing churchwide structures to better support the work of dioceses and congregations. That message resonated with bishops and deputies at a time when many Episcopal leaders are struggling to respond to declining membership, growing property maintenance costs and diminished capacity to meet canonical requirements, such as with clergy discipline. Rowe’s staff is planning to roll out a pilot program soon to assist dioceses with clergy disciplinary matters under the church’s Title IV canons, allowing dioceses to opt into a consolidated program that would relieve local leaders from filling every canonical role at the diocesan level. Another initiative, already underway in dioceses like South Carolina, offers churchwide support for more efficient fundraising for local mission. Rowe also envisions deploying churchwide staff to support dioceses on financial matters, real estate issues and crisis communications, based on positive results seen so far in test cases. The new framework also emphasizes “networked models” […]

Church of the Brethren congregations and organizations that have used Eder Financial’s organizational investing and retirement services need to work to transfer those accounts to Everence as soon as possible, if they haven’t done so already.