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[Episcopal News Service] Several congregations in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe will participate in parades and host special worship services throughout June in celebration of Pride Month. Many of these special events will take place on or close to World Refugee Day, June 20. The participating churches will use their presence to promote Episcopal Migration Ministries’ Rainbow Initiative. They aim to bring attention to the special needs of LGBTQ+ forced migrants and to spread the word that Episcopal churches are a safe space for them. “It all, for me, keeps going back to our Baptismal Covenant – ‘Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?’ That’s what we’re all trying to do,” Janet Day-Strehlow, chair of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe’s Institute for Christian Studies, told Episcopal News Service. “It’s not what we’re seeing happening in the U.S., nor in places in Europe. It’s getting more and more difficult, and more and more right-leaning, which is not the direction we want to be going.” Day-Strehlow proposed Resolution D045 – “Supporting the Protection of LGBTQI+ Refugees and Asylum Seekers” – which passed at the 80th General Convention in 2022 in Baltimore, Maryland. That resolution paved the way for the Rainbow Initiative, which launched in 2023. Since then, many dioceses and congregations churchwide have worked toward addressing the needs of LGBTQ+ migrants with their own ministries. “I think that the way that we are inclusive and loving assures people that they’re being seen – we see them, we recognize them as they are. … We are coming to these initiatives with open and loving hearts,” Erin Lederrey, the first Episcopal chaplain to serve in Switzerland and the first trans woman chaplain to serve in the Swiss Army, told ENS. Max Niedzwiecki is an anthropologist who serves on The Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on World Mission and who has worked closely with Episcopal Migration Ministries on developing its Rainbow Initiative Program. He told ENS that bringing attention to LGBTQ+ migrants is an extension of being a welcoming, inclusive and respectful church. “Putting into practice ‘welcome,’ meaning everybody, includes people who don’t speak your language and people who don’t share your gender identity or sexual orientation, and people who don’t have legal status,” Niedzwiecki said. “This is an opportunity to put that [welcome] into practice and to develop spiritually. … This is an opportunity to bring those different ministries together so that they can both become stronger.” The Episcopalians who help run these ministries have seen that LGBTQ+ migrants need support more than ever as the United States and some European Union countries enact increasingly aggressive anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ+ policies. LGBTQ+ migrants face persecution, discrimination and violence in their home countries and often in resettlement countries. Sixty-five countries around the world criminalize private, consensual same-sex relations. Homosexuality is punishable by death in 12 countries, according to data collected by the Human Dignity Trust, a United Kingdom-based charity organization that uses strategic litigation to defend LGBTQ+ rights globally. In the European Union, which includes 27 member countries, LGBTQ+ individuals have some protections under EU law and treaties. Social protections, same-sex marriages and family rights, however, vary by country. Some EU countries, like Hungary and Slovakia, have attempted to implement anti-LGBTQ+ policies in recent years. Reported hate crimes and harassment against LGBTQ+ people are increasing across Europe, according to survey data compiled by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies also have been spreading across Europe. This month, the European Union is pursuing a new migration regulation that, if enacted, will increase deportations and allow the creation of detention centers for rejected asylum-seekers who can’t be repatriated. Asylum-seekers are people seeking protection from persecution or violence but haven’t yet been legally recognized as refugees. Violence against immigrants has increased along with anti-immigrant sentiment. Last week, for example, a knife attack in Northern Ireland set off two nights of riots. Several homes believed to be housing immigrants were targeted. “No refugee or asylum-seeker is just getting up one day to move to an unfamiliar country and have the time of their life. Like LGBTQ+ communities, especially trans communities, migrant communities feel the brunt of being the scapegoats whenever there’s a conflict somewhere,” Aaron Scott, The Episcopal Church’s gender justice officer and a trans man, told ENS. Scott previously worked for an LGBTQ+ migration rights organization in New York City. The Episcopal churches in Europe are responding to these growing trends with acts of love, according to Kim Powell, senior warden of the American Cathedral in Paris, France. “In the context of church, everyone should care because we’re all children of God. We are supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves and see the reflection of God in the person we’re looking at, and ourselves,” Powell told ENS. “If it is about love, then we should be welcoming to everyone and care, because it matters.” The cathedral is observing World Refugee Day by collecting sneakers and socks for migrant children in Paris. On the morning of Paris’ Pride parade on June 27, the cathedral will host a special Pride Eucharist and gathering. The cathedral will also promote its Rainbow Ministry, which holds weekly LGBTQ+-centered Evening Prayer and Compline services. Pride Month is a time for LGBTQ+ people to celebrate their identities, share their communities’ contributions to society and raise awareness of issues they face today. For Scott, Pride Month is also a time of solidarity that must include migrants. “Pride can’t be celebrated without the whole community, so we can’t leave LGBTQ+ migrants behind,” he said. Scott is working alongside Episcopalians in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe to build a Rainbow Initiative partnerships between ministries in Europe and the United States. Day-Strehlow encourages Episcopalians living outside Europe to visit the convocation’s member churches to see firsthand how their ministries serve LGBTQ+ and migrant communities. “The Episcopal Church in Europe, […]

Five students from different countries are enhancing their English-speaking skills with an intensive summer course at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. 

Teams from the World Council of Churches (WCC) staff and from sister organizations in the Ecumenical Centre have been rising to meet the Bike to Work Challenge 2026, Switzerland's largest bicycle promotion campaign, running annually across May and June. 

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed profound sorrow and deep concern following the demolition of the historic Evangelical Church in Mashhad, Iran, and regarding subsequent reports of escalating pressure directed against the Evangelical Church of Iran and its institutions.

The World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs will host a webinar “Nuclear disarmament in times of increased militarization: the experience from Nordic countries” on 30 June from 14:30–16:00 CEST. It will be part of a series on regional trends with global impact, offering perspectives from the ecumenical movement.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is commemorating the 75th anniversary of 1951 Refugee Convention, looking back on the WCC’s early advocacy for refugee protection, to the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between the WCC and the UN Refugee Agency. 

A seminar on 11 June at the Awonsedja Church in Benin, facilitated by alumnae of a recent workshop in Togo co-organized by the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa and World Council of Churches, translated learning into action in preventing gender-based violence.  

The advocacy team have run a series of online webinars discussing prominent political issues

The controversial bill and issue return to parliament. Here’s how the UK church can mobilise itself over the coming weeks

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church, after decades of discussions about the prudence of owning and maintaining a building in New York City as its headquarters, will test the market for a possible redevelopment, sale or both, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe announced on June 17. The Episcopal Church Center in Midtown Manhattan, commonly referred to as “815” because of its street address, 815 Second Ave., rises 12 stories high and contains 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. After consulting this week with Executive Council — the church governing body is meeting June 15-17 in the Diocese of Puerto Rico —church officials are hiring New York-based Denham Wolf Real Estate Services to market the 63-year-old building for a possible sale. “We’ve done a detailed analysis about the best use of the building, with consultants and architects,” Chief Financial Officer Chris Lacovara said in a church news release. “We occupy a fraction of the Church Center space now, and the conclusion is that we don’t need to own and occupy a building in midtown Manhattan.” The news release describes the building as The Episcopal Church’s “most valuable non-endowment asset,” and it has long been a focus of speculation as church leaders considered whether to relocate the denominational headquarters. The news release notes those discussions date back at least as far as 1970, and in 2012, bishops and deputies at General Convention voted in favor of pursuing a new headquarters. The 2012 resolution says 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.” The Rev. William Coyne, a deputy from the Diocese of South Carolina at that convention, was part of the team that drafted and proposed the resolution. He told Episcopal News Service recently that he still thinks relocation is the right course. “The size of our church and the structure of how we do things now, I don’t think we need a headquarters in Manhattan,” Coyne said. The geographic center of the church also has shifted over the years, with larger numbers of Episcopalians in the southeastern United States, he said. That might justify establishing a new headquarters in a more central American city. Despite the 2012 resolution, planning for such a relocation never got off the ground. Now, 14 years later, the church is considering a range of options, possibly including “a long-term ground lease with a group that would redevelop the building, potentially as affordable housing,” according to the news release. “Dioceses and congregations throughout The Episcopal Church are looking at real estate as a missional asset, and we need to think about the Church Center in the same way,” Lacovara said. “We’re hoping that the decision to market the building, and the process we went through leading up to it, will encourage others to think carefully about how best to steward underutilized buildings and land.” Any final decision on the building is still likely months away, Rowe said. If the building is leased or sold to a developer, the church would move its existing New York-based offices to another temporary Manhattan location and initiate a churchwide discussion on a future location for the Church Center. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].