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[Religion News Service] After renewing her commitment to a controversial £100 million Church of England fund apologizing for the church’s historical ties to the slave trade, Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally ended her 10-day Africa tour Aug. 4, calling for peace and healing. “Our world cries out for healing. Millions of people live in fear. Millions are displaced. Hundreds of children do not have access to school,” said Mullally in a sermon on Aug. 4 from the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé. “I heard you speak of all these things, and I know the people of Cameroon have suffered far too long.” The trip marked Mullally’s first visit to Africa since her March 25 installation, when she became the first woman to serve as archbishop of Canterbury. She is also the first in her role to visit Cameroon. Mullally visited Ghana July 26-31 and Cameroon July 31-Aug. 4. While Ghana is regarded as one of West Africa’s more stable democracies, Cameroon is grappling with armed conflict between government forces and militant separatists identifying with the historically sidelined Anglophone community. The archbishop praised the peace-building partnerships between the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church and other denominations and faiths in Cameroon and emphasized that peace required genuine and inclusive dialogue with everyone at the table. “That requires courage, it requires strength, and it requires commitment at every level of society, but particularly those in authority,” said the archbishop. The peace message capped a trip that also focused on the Church of England’s efforts to address its historic links to the transatlantic slave trade. During the Ghana leg of her visit, Mullally defended the church’s £100 million reparations fund while visiting one of West Africa’s most significant slave forts, the Cape Coast Castle that came under British control in the 1660s. “Part of the Christian belief in repentance is about action, so we are putting in place action to support those communities that feel the legacy of the slave trade,” Mullally said from the slave fort on July 30, according to the BBC. The church’s reparation fund, first announced in January 2023, followed an independent audit revealing that an 18th-century church endowment called Queen Anne’s Bounty had heavily invested and profited in a slave-trading company. The church’s missionaries also ran slave plantations in the Caribbean to fund their work; some clergy owned slaves; and the church pocketed large donations from slave traders. The archbishop toured the dungeons where enslaved Africans were kept and went through “the door of no return” that traders forced the slaves through before shipping them to the Caribbean, Brazil and North America. Atop the dungeons sits an Anglican chapel. Mullally said that, in seeing the horrific conditions thousands of people were kept in, it was impossible not to feel the weight of the immense evil that drove the transatlantic slave trade. “I pray not only in lament for the Church’s involvement in the slave trade, but also for hope — hope that the God of healing can bring justice and reconciliation to all who are still impacted by its legacy,” she said after visiting the castle. The archbishop also preached at an all-women-led clergy service in Accra on July 26, met Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on July 27 and visited the king of the Asante people, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, on July 29. The fund is meant to be distributed through 2032 for investment, research and aid programs supporting communities affected by the slave trade. But the church has not yet made details clear about who will receive what funds or how. Retired Anglican Bishop Julius Kalu of Mombasa questioned how beneficiaries of the fund would be found, since people impacted by the slave trade died a long time ago. “That is my concern. Who is going to benefit and how are they going to be identified?” he said. Mullally’s recommitment to the fund has also ignited sharp criticisms in her home country, where some opponents have disputed the level of the church’s complicity, questioned ideological motivations behind the decision and raised legal concerns, arguing the fund is taking away money from parish churches. But in Africa, many welcome the effort and hope it will encourage other churches to work toward reparations for slavery and colonization. “This is a welcome and necessary acknowledgement, but history teaches us that recognition alone is not justice,”  said Jackie Makena, a young theologian from the Methodist Church in Kenya. “Genuine repentance requires repair.” Makena said the legacies of slavery and colonialism were inseparable and were not confined to history. “They persist in structural injustices like economic disparities and unequal global power relations that continue to shape inequality today,” she said, adding that reparation was not about assigning perpetual guilt. “It is about taking shared responsibility for healing the enduring consequences of historical injustice.” Kalu also described the fund as a good effort. “It is also a way of saying: ‘Yes, we did it, accepting we did it, but we apologize for this and (accept) this was wrong,’” he said. “I saw the damage that the slave trade did in that region, and the scars are still there and can still be seen very clearly in Ghana, more than anywhere else.” The African Union and other continental organizations have pushed for moral accountability, investment and return of stolen artifacts. The movement gained a boost in March, when the United Nations declared the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest crime against humanity.” According to Adebayo Anthony Kehinde, an evangelist in the Nigeria African Church, ministry leaders remained largely unconvinced that the £100 million commitment was sufficient. “While many of them welcome and acknowledge the apology, they instead consider the amount grossly inadequate, considering the quantum of the Church of England’s involvement in transatlantic slavery,” Kehinde said. The Church of England’s independent oversight group that conducted the audit had recommended £1 billion or more for reparations to reflect the moral gravity of slavery and the wealth of the church. Kehinde also urged European churches […]

Twenty-three young ecumenists were called to embody hope and unity during the month-long Asian Ecumenical Institute 2026 in Chiang Mai, an annual ecumenical formation programme organised by the Christian Conference of Asia. 

On 2-3 July, the Second International Conference of the Observatory of Religious Fundamentalism was held at the Orthodox Academy of Crete on the topic “Fundamentalism and the Protection of Religious Monuments and Sites.”

Meelis Süld - pastor, journalist and general secretary of the Council of Lutheran Churches in Great Britain - reflects on why church unity is important, and what are the ecumenical resources that help the most.

Each year, August 6-9 is set aside as Nuclear Week, a time of remembrance that marks the anniversaries of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the end of 1945, the bombing had killed an estimated 140,000 people in…

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Rev. Prof. Dr Kuzipa Nalwamba, World Council of Churches (WCC) programme director for Unity, Mission, and Ecumenical Formation, visited Australia during late July and early August, offering a guest lecture at the United Theological College, preaching at local churches, and sharing an update on the WCC with local religious leaders. 

Rev. Prof. Dr Kuzipa Nalwamba, World Council of Churches (WCC) programme director for Unity, Mission, and Ecumenical Formation, offered the May McLeod lecture at the United Theological College in Australia on 30 July. 

[Anglican Communion News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally has called for peace in Cameroon on the final day of her historic visit to the country. Cameroon is the second part of Mullally’s pastoral visit to Anglican churches in Ghana and Cameroon by invitation from Archbishop Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith, primate of the Church of the Province of West Africa. The 10-day visit began on July 26 in Ghana. Preaching at a farewell service in Yaoundé on Aug. 4, Mullally said the people of Cameroon “have suffered for far too long” and called for “genuine and inclusive dialogue” that leads to peace. A civil war in Cameroon called the “Anglophone Crisis” began in 2017 and remains ongoing. Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] Spokane Bishop Gretchen Rehberg is calling for Episcopalians to “be the hands and feet of Jesus” in response to multiple wildfires spreading throughout eastern Washington. The 2026 wildfire season is the most destructive in the state’s modern history. “Our hearts and prayers are with everyone who has been displaced or is suffering loss due to the fires in our region,” Rehberg said in an Aug. 3 reel on the Diocese of Spokane’s Facebook page. “You are not alone.” The state’s governor issued a statewide emergency on Aug. 1. As of Aug. 4, at least 700 structures have burned in the state’s second-most populated city, Spokane, displacing at least 65,000 people. The three fires – called the Old Trails, Autumn Lane and Fairview fires and collectively known as the Spokane Complex Fire – are burning on Spokane’s outskirts and are all 0% contained. More than 250,000 acres statewide have burned, surpassing the total acres burned in 2025. A man has been arrested for allegedly starting the Old Trails fire on purpose. The cause of the Autumn Lane and Fairview fires remains unknown. No deaths have been reported. Strong winds, high heat and a very dry cold front are exacerbating the wildfires. Washington has been experiencing a statewide drought since summer 2023. Climate change is also intensifying the severity of the wildfires, as burning fossil fuels contributes to hotter temperatures and a drier atmosphere. As the climate warms, more water vapor evaporates from plants, which dries them out and increases the risk of fires that can also generate smoke plumes, according to a report from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The Spokane wildfires are the latest case of an urban firestorm, which occurs when large fires move into a built environment. This causes structures to become the fires’ primary fuel source instead of vegetation, according to the Yale report. Other recent notable urban firestorms include the 2025 Southern California wildfires and the 2023 Maui wildfires in Hawai‘i. Like Spokane, the Southern California and Maui wildfires occurred in densely populated areas. Wildfires are also burning nationwide, including in Washington’s neighboring states, Oregon and Idaho. Rehberg has been communicating with Episcopal Relief & Development to assess how best to assist relief efforts. “There are ways we can contribute in the short run – to the Red Cross, to other relief agencies – but ERD will be here in the long run,” Rehberg said. The Diocese of Spokane is also accepting monetary donations through its disaster relief fund. Several dioceses in the western half of the United States have reached out to Rehberg asking how they can help. She noted in the video that she was wearing a Hawaiian shirt that youth and young adult Episcopalians recently gave her after returning from a Province VIII youth event in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. The reason, she said, was to remind Episcopalians of the 2023 Maui and 2025 Southern California wildfires. The Diocese of Spokane sent funds to the dioceses of Hawai‘i and Los Angeles to help with their recovery efforts. “We care for one another, not just in our own small towns, not just in our own congregations. But we reach out, and we care for and we love one another and we help one another when we are in need,” Rehberg said in the reel. “That’s what we are called to do in this time of need – not just for ourselves, to Episcopalians, but to our town, our cities, our communities that are hurting.” In an Aug. 3 diocesan email, Hawai‘i Bishop Robert L. Fitzpatrick encouraged Episcopalians to donate to the Diocese of Spokane’s disaster relief fund. “God’s people and congregations in the Diocese of Hawai‘i are urged to pray for the Diocese of Spokane and for those affected by these devastating fires,” he said. In addition to disaster relief donations and prayers, Rehberg also called on Episcopalians to be “loving and compassionate” as wildfire suppression continues, and Spokane communities prepare to begin recovery efforts. “As we deal with the devastation of the fires – as we deal with the fear and the anxiety and relief, and the concern about smoke and the concern about loss – let us be like Jesus,” Rehberg said. “Let us offer one another love. Let us offer one another assistance. Let us offer one another peace. And let us remember that we will get through this, and Christ is with us in this time.” -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

Three staff members have stepped into new roles.

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