Sanctuary Sunday and Refugee Week 2025

Sanctuary Sunday is marked at the end of Refugee Week and aims to promote the Church of Sanctuary programme, building cultures of welcome, hospitality and safety in our churches.

If you plan to hold, or are looking for an event, to mark Sanctuary Sunday or Refugee Week please register or search for an event on the Refugee Week or Refugee Week Ireland websites.

The Conference of European Churches (CEC) and Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) are also asking churches across Europe to hold services, prayers, or vigils on or around 22 June 2025, in connection with World Refugee Day (20 June), to remember those who have lost their lives on their journey to safety—whether in the Mediterranean, the Channel, at Eastern borders, or elsewhere.

Sanctuary Sunday

This year, Sanctuary Sunday is 22 June 2025.

The event aims to give expression through prayer and witness to the centrality of sanctuary and hospitality to the stranger in the Christian call to love our neighbours. At its heart, this work is about connecting people, locally and globally, with respect for the dignity of every human person as made in the image and likeness of God.

Churches are at the heart of the community reflecting the Refugee Week theme of ‘Community as a Superpower‘. Given the current ‘climate’, now is an important time for churches to engage with issues relating to asylum and refugees, with the hope of bringing more ‘light’ to an often heated conversation.

Resources

Sanctuary: The Hospitality of Host, Guest and Stranger is an ideal resource to use, both for Sanctuary Sunday and Refugee Week. Produced by Revd Dr Inderjit Bhogal and Dr Jayme R Reaves, it is designed to support individual Christians, Church communities and ecumenical groups in reflecting on the significance of sanctuary for our times.

Methodist Church – film and prayer

The Methodist Church has produced a film for Sanctuary Sunday (below) which it is encouraging all Methodist Churches to show on Sanctuary Sunday. The church has also published a prayer written by Ashkan Rezaei, who has lived experience of being an asylum seeker and refugee.

Refugee Week

This year Refugee Week runs from 16-22 June 2025 and has the theme ‘Community as a Superpower’.

Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts and culture festival celebrating the contributions, resilience, and creativity of refugees. Each year, thousands of independently organised events take place globally.

For more information, please see the Refugee Week and Refugee Week Ireland websites.