The Catholic bishop of Osnabrück in northern Germany says the 16th-century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther offers a "positive challenge" to Protestant and Catholic churches.

A Polish Lutheran who is the first president of the European Parliament from a post-communist European country, says he wants to deepen dialogue with the continent's Christian churches.

Jerusalem Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan has appealed to leaders of churches in Europe to stand by Christians in the Middle East in their struggle for justice and peace.

Theologians from across the globe have been gathering in Augsburg for a consultation of Lutheran churches – the third largest worldwide Christian confession after the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

The bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover in Germany has issued a strong plea to give the upcoming jubilee of the Reformation a clear emphasis on common Christian witness.

The Rev Nilton Giese, a Lutheran pastor from Brazil, has been named as the new general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI), the leading inter-church body in the region.

Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have joined African religious leaders in publicly undergoing testing to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS and combat its stigma.

Roman Catholics can learn from Protestant reformer Martin Luther, the Vatican's top official for Christian unity, has said, as many churches in Germany prepare to launch a 10-year series of events for his 500th anniversary.

The Lutheran Church of Sweden will today mark the 50th anniversary of its decision in 1958 to ordain women as priests, and cathedrals in all of the church's 13 dioceses are to hold services to celebrate the anniversary.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus and author Peter Matthiessen are among those who have said they will attend an interfaith climate summit being organized by the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden in Uppsala in November 2008.