Professor Pillay elected as WCC general secretary

THE next and ninth general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) is to be the Revd Professor Jerry Pillay, Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Professor Pillay, who is South African and a member of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, was elected last Friday. The other candidate was Dr Elizabeth Joy. He succeeds the acting general secretary, the Revd Professor Ioan Sauca, who has served from April 2020, when the previous general secretary, the Revd Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, was appointed Presiding Bishop of the Church of Norway. Professor Pillay will take up his new post on 1 January. Welcoming him, the WCC central committee’s moderator, Dr Agnes Abuom, said: “You and the ecumenical movement are making history — and forming a future in which we can live out God’s love for one another and for all.”

Further fatal church attacks in Nigeria

THREE people have been killed and 36 people were abducted by armed militia who reportedly attacked two churches in the Kajuru Local Government Area of southern Kaduna state, Nigeria, on Sunday. One person remains seriously injured in hospital. The men opened fire at St Moses’ Catholic Church before carrying out a mass abduction at Bege Baptist Church. It was reported that the Ward Head was among the abductees, but was later returned to the village to act as a contact for ransom negotiations. Two weeks ago, dozens of worshippers, including children, were massacred by armed men carrying explosives during a Pentecost mass in a Roman Catholic church in south-west Nigeria (News, 10 June).