For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Member Churches News
Thessaloniki, Greece
WCRC European Area
Member Churches, and past Council Delegates
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
I have much pleasure in inviting you to the meeting of the Council of WCRC Europe which will take place
on 4-6 June 2026 in Oradea, Romania. The main theme of our annual meeting is ‘Persevere in Your Witness – what does this mean for us in Europe’. The area council is dedicated to our response to the 2025 General Council, from the specific viewpoints of our continental churches; how and on which issues of WCRC Global do we want to engage?
Business will start at 4 p.m., on Thursday, 4 June. The Council will end with a communion service at 6:30 p.m., on Friday, 5 June, followed by dinner at 7:30. June 6, Saturday is for departures.
Our accommodation is Hotel Continental Forum Oradea:
continental-forum-oradea.continentalhotels.ro/en – it is 10 mins by foot from the city centre and 20 mins from the headquarters of the Host Church. Room prices, including breakfast are: 70EUR/night for a single room, and 80EUR for a double room. Rooms are reserved for the nights of 4 and 5 June. In case you might like to extend your stay in Oradea, please let me know.
Oradea has got a small international airport with direct flights from eight European destinations, please check this map to eventually identify a transfer:
www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-oradea-omr
Please fill in the enclosed
registration form and send it back to me at your earliest convenience, but not later than
31 March. (Please save it as:
YourName).
The agenda and other council documents will be posted to the registered participants in April.
If you wish the Steering Committee to consider any matter for inclusion in the 2026 Council, please e-mail me until 16 April.
If you are going to seek assistance with paying for your accommodation or travel, do not hesitate to get in touch with Kerstin Koch, the Treasurer:
koch.kerstin@freenet.de
Yours sincerely,
János Antal
secretary
Pentecost Message
There is no just war
"Indeed, the Lord brings a charge against the people who live in the land — for there is no truth and no gracious love or knowledge of God in the land." (Hosea 4:1)
The horrors of war are constantly around us: they are sometimes manifested via news from distant countries, in the form of cold war tensions, through the silence of secret preparations, or by noisy threats and sophisticated intimidations. These days, just after the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out in the immediate vicinity of the European Union, people seem to experience extreme spiritual reactions, from "not my war" to "everything is lost" …
Joint conference with Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe and Protestant Church Switzerland
The CPCE is conducting its deliberations and activities addressing the corona pandemic under the banner: God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and consideration (2 Timothy 1:7).
The text “Being Church Together in a Pandemic – Reflections from a Protestant Perspective” offers guidance from a Protestant perspective on ethical issues arising from the corona pandemic or accentuated under these conditions..
> read more in english: Conference report from the online consultation (PDF)
> lire la suite en français: Rapport de la conférence en ligne (PDF)
> mehr lesen in deutsch: Tagungsbericht der Online-Konsultation (PDF)
Freedom and legality, humanity and human rights in Belarus!
We ask you to pray for freedom and legality in Belarus, for humanity and human rights in our country.
Members of the Reformed community also took part in the protests against the election fraud, against the arbitrariness and violence of the Lukashenko dictatorship. Several members of the community were arrested and fined. Now, a spokesman for the community, whom we met at our councils and who had to flee abroad, wrote to us: “We ask you to pray for freedom and legality in Belarus, for humanity and human rights in our country. (...) At the moment, more than 30,000 best people of Belarus of all professions and ages (from underage schoolchildren to even 89 years old!) have gone, through the courts and prisons (…)”
> read more > PDF-document from WCRC-Europe-President
The Synodal Council of the ECCB Calls For Solidarity With the Oppressed in Belarus
We have been following the tense situation in Belarus with deep concern. The protests against the dictatorial regime of President Lukashenko have been going on for seven months. Although the August presidential election was obviously rigged, the regime is not willing to back down. Opposition protesters face permanent threats and persecution.
> read more > PDF-document from The Evangelical Church of Czech
Intercession for Belarus
Eternal and merciful God!
Before you, we think of the people of Belarus today.
More people than ever took to the streets last year demonstrated peacefully and happily against the falsification of the election, against the arbitrariness and violence of the regime. They were forcibly dispersed and many thousands arrested.But they didn't let themselves be intimidated and kept going.
> read more > PDF-document from Reformierte Kirche Germany and WCRC-Europe
One way to look at the pandemic
Meditation from
István Csűry
Bishop, Kiralyhagomelleki Reformatus Egyhazkeruelet (Oradea), Romania
The book of Prophet Isaiah clearly states that the penalty came from God, because He ‘had seen our ways…’ (Isaiah, 57:18). This new pandemic brings diverse reactions to the surface: some simply do not believe in the spreading of the virus in our Pan-European community, some others are hiding with an end-of-world fear. There are milder and stricter approaches between the two extremes.
Report from Sándor Zán Fábián
Bishop, Reformed Church in Transcarpathia
The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed
armed groups entered its fifth year. It is still a great problem and challenge of the country.
Hungary always tried to fight and to protect the hungarian minority in Tarnscarpathia.
Tensions have worsened between Budapest and Kyiv over a Ukrainian language law, which Hungary considers hostile to its minority population in the Transcarpathia region.
Visit to Beirut – 21-26 September 2020
Report from the Protestant Church in Switzerland
about the visit in Beirut in September 2020
From 21-26. September 2020, Serge Fornerod, Director of External Relations of the Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), traveled to Beirut on behalf of the Council together with Tabea Stalder, who is in charge of the church cooperation program of HEKS/EPER, the aid organization of the Protestant Churches in Switzerland. The PCS wished to express its tangible solidarity and sympathy with its partner churches in the area after the Beirut port explosion in early August. Lebanon has been experiencing a series of political and economic shocks over the past year that has put the coexistence of the various communities at risk.
United 4Rescue
News from Ukraine
Till this time 2645 people were recovered from the illness. It is very bad news that the proper quarter classifies Transcarpathia one of the most endangered region.
Report about the situation on Chios/Greece
Some days ago, it was the day: it was reported that a woman is tested positive.
Today it was confirmed that an employee of the European Asylum Support Office - EASO is positive on the virus. After the person was on vacation. The answer of the authorities is: to lock the camp and to close the services inside until at least 25 August. Close the camp?
Effectively this means, letting the virus spread inside. Among extremely vulnerable persons, that have no option to socially distance or to even wash their hands on a regular basis. They sleep in tents on the bare ground. And now they are terrified of getting seriously ill and suffer or die. And they are terrified for a good reason. ItNew is the foreseeable catastrophe. And shows more than a simple failure. It shows the sheer indifference for the lives of human beings.
Report from Dimitris Boukis
about the visit in MORIA REFUGEE CAMP, 17 February 2020, Lesvos, GREECE.
On Monday, February 17, 2020 Martina Waterloos, Kerstin Kosh and Dimitris Boukis visited the «refugee camp» in Moria on the Greek Island of Lesvos. Lesvos is the third biggest island in Greece with a coastline of 370km. It is home to approximately 100,000 residents and is only a few miles away from the SW coast of Turkey, making it the main “refugee gate” to Europe in the SE Mediterranean sea.
Bericht über die Reise nach Lesbos und Chios
von Martina Wasserloos-Strunk
… Mein Reisebericht vom Besuch in zwei der großen griechischen Flüchtlingslager ist möglicherweise nicht ganz objektiv. Nein – er ist ganz sicher nicht objektiv. Er ist sauwütend. Ich bin erschüttert und wütend darüber, dass so etwas in meinem Europa möglich ist. Mehr noch als manche andere Reise hat mir diese vor Augen geführt, wie privilegiert wir sind und wie viel Energie von uns darauf verwendet wird, diese Privilegien abzusichern.
The Evangelical Church of Greece expresses its sorrows for the conversion of Hagia Sophias
United Kingdom will no longer be a member of the European Union
Our Churches have contributed to and been enriched by the Christian tradition in Europe for centuries.
> read more > PDF-Document