I was again deeply disturbed by news from the World Council of Churches (WCC). Their recent weekly report said nothing about Russian aggression against Ukraine, nor was there a call to pray for peace in that region. Why?
Founded in 1948, the WCC includes many Protestant and Orthodox churches, representing some 450 million Christians. Observers from the Roman Catholic Church also participate. From this collaboration of churches, several valuable documents and actions have emerged. However, it is well known that the WCC has not been immune to political pressures. In the 1960s-1980s, there was a strong influence of communism from the East and various leftist ideologies from the West.
Some representatives of the churches, including from my country (the Czech Republic), were direct agents of the KGB and other secret services. The WCC has also made many political missteps, for example, investments in weapons for revolutionary groups in Africa and Latin America. It is a deeply pluralistic forum that includes both biblically oriented Christians and some who hold deeply liberal theological beliefs.
After the fall of totalitarian regimes in Europe, it seemed that the situation would change and that the work of the WCC would be less influenced by the political views of its executive members. Some pressures have disappeared, but others have emerged. Sometimes it seems that member churches have no idea what is hidden under the WCC umbrella and what some of their representatives in Geneva are doing and saying. In the past three years, such political missteps have reappeared.
After the outbreak of the terrible war of Russia against Ukraine, the WCC has been unable to condemn the aggressor, despite a few cautious statements. The reason is the influential Russian Orthodox Church, which has a person on a crucial committee. Moscow Patriarch Kirill is a former member of the Russian KGB and was a colleague of Putin. Since the beginning of the war, Kirill has been leading a campaign to support Putin’s imperialist ambitions, declaring the ongoing war a holy war, blessing soldiers and weapons, and calling for further fighting.
On both sides of the Ukraine conflict, hundreds of thousands of soldiers have already fallen, and an enormous number of homes, hospitals, schools, and factories have been destroyed. This senseless war has already killed or injured thousands of civilians, including children, and left millions homeless and jobless. The psychological impact on people cannot be quantified.
The General Secretary of the WCC, South African Jerry Pillay, visited Patriarch Kirill in Moscow. The content of their conversation is not well known, only that Kirill thanked him. In 2022, the WCC General Assembly took place in Karlsruhe. The leadership of this meeting received suggestions to exclude the Russian Orthodox Church from the WCC. Many evil things are happening in the world, but in the case of the mentioned war, the stance of the Russian Orthodox Church is scandalous and clearly compromises all of Christianity. The WCC apparatus softened the documents for the 2022 General Assembly, allowing representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church to thank them, return home satisfied, and continue supporting Putin’s war.
To this day, the WCC has not been able to clearly condemn this war. Even now, after three years of horror, this war is not being publicly discussed in the WCC. In their reports you will read about efforts for peace negotiations and recommended prayers for Gaza, Zimbabwe, Congo, Sudan, and other countries. All of this is necessary. But how is it possible to overlook the enormous European conflict that brings pain and death to thousands of people every day?
It is known that the Republic of South Africa has friendly relations with Russia and has not opposed the war. And General Secretary Jerry Pillay is from South Africa. Isn’t this an example of politics influencing an attitude toward an aggressive war and turning a blind eye to justice?
In the WCC materials, you will find much about the struggle for peace, the protection of the environment, and social justice. Behind the walls of the Geneva offices, it seems as if the cries of those who are losing their loved ones, their homes, and whose land is shattered by the explosions of bombs and shells, and whose result is a huge ecological crisis, do not reach them.
It’s nice that coffee is served in ecological cups in Geneva, but who will believe that the World Council of Churches takes justice, peace, and ecology seriously? Is not the situation ripe for a modern Barmen Declaration (the 1934 rejection of the Nazi ideology by German-speaking Protestants) that would express on behalf of global Christianity that it is impossible to sit at the same table with delegates of a church that officially tramples on human rights, approves aggression against another state, and supports killing and the destruction of their country?
What a pity that the current leadership of the WCC listens less to the voices of Ukrainian Christians who are pleading for help to save their homeland, families, and children, than was the case at the December meeting in Poland of the Conference of European Churches.
The Rev. Pavel Černý was called to be a theologian during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague. His doctoral work (2006) included studies on the influence of Marxism, Liberation Theology and the KGB within the WCC.
Comment by Tim Ware on March 24, 2025 at 8:37 am
What about the fact that Russia and Ukraine would have settled this long ago had the Americans and British not told them not to? The war was something the Americans and British wanted.
The Ukrainians were played, and not by the Russians. They were used as cannon fodder in the American/British proxy war against Putin.
This article merely parrots The Narrative.
Comment by JoeR on March 24, 2025 at 6:26 pm
Glad you have it all figured out to your satisfaction, Tim
Comment by Tim Ware on March 31, 2025 at 12:33 am
And now with the New York Times expose that came out recently, a piece that is the result of contacting over 300 sources, even the MSM is admitting it is a proxy war.
Comment by Ross Berry on July 21, 2025 at 11:34 am
The war started in 2009 when the American CIA helped overthrow the democratically government of a neighboring friendly state. The war already had more than 20,000 casualties when Ukraine was ordered by the Americans to destroy the water supply of the 2 million in Crimea. This gave Putin no choice if he wished to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Crimea. But essentially this is a Civil War not unlike the American Civil War. Two slightly different cultures with slightly different ways of speaking but 1000 years of history together. Those trying to build a United States of Europe have blood on their hands. Stop the monotonous one-sided propaganda.