Open letter to the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches

Prague, 15^th April 2024

Dear Brother General Secretary,

in March of this year, you accompanied your request for payment of our membership fee with a personal letter. In it you wrote, among other things: "Thank you for your commitment and contributions to the WCC, not only financially but in many different ways to enhance and strengthen the work we do together." We appreciate being part of the unique fellowship of so many Christian churches around the world. Our membership is both an honour and a commitment. At the same time, it is our responsibility not to remain silent if what you write is to be true: "The WCC remains committed and faithful in proclaiming justice, peace, reconciliation, and unity to the world." 

Not long after your letter was written, the XXV World Russian People's Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the member churches of the WCC, issued a resolution „The Present and Future of the Russian World“, in which, among other things, it describes the special military operation (i.e. the Russian Federation's war of aggression against Ukraine) as a holy war against a free Ukraine and the West that has fallen into Satanism. This is blasphemy on the part of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, by which they find themselves completely outside the Body of Christ. Clearly, they have abandoned the authority of the Gospel of Christ and are only pursuing the interests of the nationalist ideology of the so-called Russian World. 

It is our sad historical experience from the life of the Church under communist totalitarianism that Church leaders can succumb to the pressures of power and become untrustworthy. By doing this, they are betraying their theological tradition and their Church, if by Church we understand not an institution but a living community of believers. This is still the bitter experience of Christians living in unfree circumstances in various parts of the world. 

They are all our brothers and sisters, members of our body, to whom we are obliged to give support and solidarity. At this moment, it is necessary to stand up for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Russian priests, who clearly spoke out against this war at its very beginning (Appeal of the Clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church calling for Reconciliation and Cessation of War - in Russian)

We call on the WCC to reject the blasphemous declaration of holy war publicly and unequivocally and to just as publicly and unequivocally support Ukrainian Christians and Russian Orthodox dissidents who oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  It is a question of our commitment to the Gospel and the credibility of our testimony.

We pray for you and for the true peace of Christ for this world