WCC news: WCC Christmas message: “Holy Family, Holy Faith” connects us all

The World Council of Churches Christmas message, “Holy Family, Holy Faith,” reflects on the desperate and unlikely circumstances in which the Holy Family began.  Icon pictured, included in an Orthodox vesper observed at the 2025 Central Committee meeting of the World Council of Churches taking place in Johannesburg (South Africa) from 18 to 24 June 2025 on the theme ’Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity’. Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC 9 December 2025 “Now as then, families today experience the risks and perils and vicissitudes of being human in our too cruel world,” reads the message. “Millions of families around the world are assailed by poverty and persecution, displaced by climate and disasters, torn apart as refugees flee from conflict and violence.” Yet hope is born.  “Angels sing and shepherds kneel! God’s incarnation in human form, Jesus embodies God’s love and confirms our infinite value as children of God, elevating, illuminating, and enlarging our lives and the whole human family in a deeper kinship with God and each other,” reads the message.  The Holy Family is the icon of our kinship with God, each other, and the human prospect. “Through holy faith, we are invited into and united in God’s holy family. We are not alone in our struggles, pain and suffering. We are connected and interconnected. We are family. And Immanuel, God is with us forever!” Holy Family, Holy Faith – Christmas Message 2025 Christmas 2025 See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland