A UKRAINIAN government official has called for the Russian Orthodox Church to be expelled from the World Council of Churches (WCC) as Ukraine’s religious leaders once again demanded tougher sanctions against supporters of the Russian war.
“The WCC should exclude the Russian Church from membership since its activities directly contradict the fundamental principles of Christianity,” said Viktor Yelensky, the head of Ukraine’s State Service for Freedom of Conscience.
“The Moscow Patriarchate is an enemy of both religious freedom and Ukraine. It aims at suppressing the worthy expression of religious freedom and at destroying Ukrainian statehood, culture, and identity.”
It was, he said, “absolutely legitimate” to discuss sanctions against Patriarch Kirill, who, he said, had become a spokesman for Russian war aims, as well as against other clergy who “glorified war” and conducted what the Patriarch describes as “subversive work” in Western countries.
The minister was speaking at a seminar organised by the Collège des Bernardins research centre in France last week. Over the weekend, Russian mass missile and drone strikes killed at least 22 civilians and injured dozens more in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and other cities.
Ukraine’s Council of Churches and Religious Organisations said on Tuesday that the latest attacks, just after “the bright holiday of the Trinity”, had destroyed and damaged numerous residential buildings, as well as churches, schools, hospitals, and commercial offices.
“These bloody crimes are being committed by Russian invaders of Ukrainian soil with the active support of the Moscow Patriarchate, an integral part of the criminal Kremlin regime,” the council said. “A clear voice in support for Ukraine — and condemnation of evil — from governments, churches, and non-governmental organisations, intelligentsia, and ordinary people is now extremely important.”
Calls for the Russian Orthodox Church’s expulsion from the WCC, whose 356 member-denominations represent 580 million Christians worldwide, were first made after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Anglican, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant leaders from 15 countries signed a petition calling for the expulsion. The signatories included the as well as the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams.
The WCC’s central committee rejected any such move during a meeting in June 2022, and said that it “acknowledged and welcomed” the Moscow Patriarchate’s commitment “to engage in encounter and dialogue under WCC auspices”.
In April 2024, however, the WCC’s general secretary, the Revd Professor Jerry Pillay, said that the council was “seeking clarifications”, after Patriarch Kirill approved a statement urging a total takeover of Ukraine and “holy war” against the West, which he said had “fallen into Satanism”.
The WCC’s communications office did not respond to written questions from the Church Times this week and declined to say whether Patriarch Kirill had replied to Professor Pillay’s clarification request two years ago.
In a public statement on Tuesday Professor Pillay deplored the latest “deadly cycle of violence” and called for a lasting peace based on “respect for international law and fundamental moral precepts”.
He added that this week’s strikes had followed the death of 24 people in attacks on Kyiv in May, and Russian reports that a Ukrainian drone strike had killed 21 students in a college dormitory near Russian-controlled Luhansk.