ROME — A representative of the Russian Orthodox Church ridiculed the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) condemnation of the war on Ukraine, comparing it to similar statements by McDonald’s or Starbucks.
Archimandrite Philaret Bulekov, vice-chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), declared this week that the WCC text had “the same level of importance” as “statements of McDonald’s and Starbucks.”
On September 8, the WCC published its text titled “War in Ukraine, Peace and Justice in the European Region,” in which it underscores the “tragic consequences” for the people of Ukraine “since the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, in addition to the thousands of casualties including many civilians in the East of the country and hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced people since 2014.”
During the six-month period since the invasion, “there have been over 13,000 Ukrainian civilian casualties and cities such as Mariupol have been laid in ruins,” the text laments, and at this moment “close to 14 million people – almost one-third of the entire population of Ukraine – have been forced to flee their homes.”
The document also highlights “reports of atrocities that may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, including sexual and gender-based violence, as well as greatly heightened vulnerability to human trafficking.”
We are “very concerned about the risks of catastrophic consequences resulting from damage caused to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by military activities in its vicinity – as well as containment security at the site of the Chornobyl disaster of 1986,” the WCC states.
In the light of these considerations, the WCC condemns Russia’s “illegal and unjustifiable war” with its “awful and continuing toll of deaths, destruction and displacement” as well as the “increased famine risk in food insecure regions of the world, of economic hardship and heightened social and political instability in many countries.”
“As Christians from different parts of the world we renew the call for an immediate ceasefire to halt the death and destruction, and for dialogue and negotiations to secure a sustainable peace,” it declares.
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