On October 17, 2022, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow met with Acting General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Archpriest Ioan Sauca.
This was reported by the website of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Addressing the guest with a welcome speech, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church noted the neutral position of the WCC. He said that “now the times are very difficult, but the difficulties do not come from the churches, but from the political context, and this context is extremely dangerous. We can’t even fathom how close we are to a very dangerous development of relations between nations. Therefore, today the Churches should not add gasoline to the fire – we should do everything to put out the flame. In this sense, the function of the World Council of Churches and the inter-Christian movement in general is very important. The pro-active, albeit neutral, position of the World Council of Churches, which does not support any political side to this conflict, is, in my opinion, the only correct one, and it must be followed in the future. Churches by their very nature have peacemaking potential. If any church begins to wave the flag of war and call for confrontation, then it is speaking against its nature.”
The Moscow Patriarch, who blesses the Russian troops for the war against Ukraine, emphasized that in this difficult situation, “first of all, it is important that no more blood be shed, no more buildings and infrastructure be destroyed, so that people’s suffering ceases.”
Kirill assured that the Russian Orthodox Church is very interested in the objective, impartial attention of their ecumenical partners to this “difficult and tragic situation, it is important to convince world leaders to bring peace through negotiations and dialogue, not through bloodshed and destruction.”
The General Secretary of the WCC, Archpriest Ioan Sauca thanked the Moscow Patriarchate for the answers to the letters sent by the WCC and emphasized that the statements of the World Council of Churches were made with the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church: “Members of the World Council of Churches were waiting for this visit. We came here with a mandate from the Central Committee of the WCC. I was assigned to visit our deeply wounded members in the Middle East: in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine, later in Ukraine, and finally I arrived in Russia. You are aware of the fears expressed by the member churches of the Russian Orthodox Church regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia. You are familiar with the positions that we voiced during the meetings of the Central Committee of the WCC. These statements were drafted with the participation, in particular, of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. I am grateful for the answers to the letters that we sent you on behalf of the WCC. We came here to understand what we can do together to build bridges of peace and reconciliation, how to stop bloodshed and prevent the threat of nuclear conflagration.”
Sauca recalled that the proposal to exclude the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches was put to a vote, “all members of the Central Committee unanimously voted for the preservation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the family of the Russian Orthodox Church, but for the continuation of the dialogue, in particular, on theological arguments and support for the war, which, on the opinion of some, were stated in some of your sermons and speeches.
Earlier, OCU spokesman Yevstratiy (Zorya) said that part of the Russian Orthodox Church delegation at the World Council of Churches were in fact FSB security operatives. The Spiritual Front of Ukraine also analyzed the statement of the WCC regarding the situation in Ukraine, having concluded that the Russian Federation has not been condemned as an aggressor. Instead, in the WCC statement, Ukraine and the Russian Federation are equated. An equation sign as been between Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s defense of its own citizens, territories, and interests.
