News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. July 6, 2001 [2001-179]
Pope's pilgrimage to Ukraine prompts warning from Russian Orthodox leader
(ENI) The recent pilgrimage by Pope John Paul II to the Ukraine has prompted a warning from a senior Russian Orthodox leader that ties with Roman Catholics are now in a "dead-end situation."
Despite warnings that he would not be welcome, the Pope accepted an invitation from President Leonid Kuchma and Roman Catholic leaders, underscoring the simmering controversy between the Ukraine's largest Orthodox church and the Vatican about the role of Roman Catholics in traditionally Orthodox lands. The five-million-member Greek Catholic Church in the Ukraine, banned by the Soviets for 44 years, is enjoying a resurgence, reclaiming church properties that had been given to the Orthodox. Since 1999 more than a thousand places of worship have been returned to the Greek Catholics, who follow the Eastern liturgy but are loyal to the Vatican.
During his mid-June visit, the Pope called on Greek Catholics to "build appropriate forms of fraternal cooperation" with Orthodox Christians, who compose three-fifths of the Ukraine's population of 50 million.
According to the Rev. Hilarion Alfeyev of the Moscow Patriarchate, "one thing is clear--this visit won't improve relations between us." And it won't increase the likelihood of fulfilling the Pope's wishes to visit Moscow.
Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia said during a visit to London that the Pope had been "stirring up tension" during the visit and would serve only to "exacerbate the harassment of the Orthodox which takes place in that region."
However, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that "there seems to be something fundamentally wrong when the head of a church can't visit another church just because they haven't resolved all their differences."
AIDS activists applaud United Nations declaration
(ENI) AIDS activists in faith-based organizations greeted an international declaration on the pandemic adopted by the United Nations, though they expressed disappointment that the document omits groups at risk for contracting the disease.
"It was a historic moment, where the issue was given due attention by the international community," said Dr. Manoj Kurian, a Malaysian who directs the health and healing program of the World Council of Churches, following the June 25-27 session.
The UN declaration sets specific goals in fighting AIDS, such as a reduction in the infection rate by 25 percent and the availability of educational programs in all nations within the next four years.
According to some activists, the document also reflects the conservatism of a number of UN members who opposed more specific language on those at particular risk--gay men, sex workers and their clients, and intravenous drug users and their sexual partners. They charged that Islamic governments, with help from the Bush Administration, watered down the final declaration of commitment.
"It's a compromise paper and there is not much new in it," said Dr. Christopher Benn, coordinator of a four-member WCC ecumenical team attending the special session. Yet he said that it was significant "because it sends a message from the United Nations on the importance of the most significant health issue facing the world. This is something on a new scale."
Benn also said that the declaration acknowledged the role of the faith community in fighting AIDS--a first for a UN document, and gave a new prominence to the World Council of Churches and other faith groups. The WCC promoted what he called "a balanced approach," using educational efforts that emphasize both condoms and fidelity between couples and abstinence or delayed sexual activity for young people.
Rwandan official praises role of churches in search for reconciliation
(ENI) A Rwandan government official responsible for guiding efforts seeking peace and reconciliation following the genocide of 1994 told a meeting in the Netherlands that the churches played a significant role in fomenting violence, but are now needed to build for the future.
"No one can talk about reconciliation in Rwanda unless the churches join the discussion," said Aloisea Inyumba, director of the National Commission for Unity and Reconciliation, at a congress of the World Association for Christian Communication. "I as a government official can control structures but the church controls the spirit and the mind of the people."
He said that the church "was one of the institutions that was supposed to protect the people, but instead turned against them" during the three months of ethnic violence that claimed the lives of as many as a million Rwandans, most of them minority Tutsis killed by rival Hutus.
According to Inyumba, the media played a key role in promoting violence, citing a Hutu radio station that became widely known as "Hate Radio." He said that "it broadcast the message that one ethnic group was snakes and cockroaches, and told you how to kill them. It gave information the deliberately supported the organizers of the genocide. That one radio station contributed 40 to 50 percent of what happened in our country," he said.
Canada's conservative Anglicans meet to promote 'orthodoxy'
(ENI) As more than 650 conservative members of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) met in Langley, British Columbia, for six days from June 14-19, a leading conservative described the ACC as "a church in trouble."
The meeting took place under the auspices of Anglican Essentials (AE), a movement which is "pressing the church towards Christian orthodoxy." The comment was made in a video by Dr. Harry Robinson, member of the AE's executive committee, who also said that there was a "religious melt-down in the global community."
Robinson's brother, the Rev. Thomas Robinson, a member of the AE Council, told ENI: "We want to talk very much in positive terms of who and what the Anglican Church is and to simply identify a body of orthodox evangelical Anglicans who are concerned that the ACC not go off course."
Three Anglican organizations set up the AE movement: the Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada, which fosters charismatic renewal; Barnabas Anglican Ministries (BAM), which is part of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC); and the Prayer Book Society of Canada.
Attending and addressing the conference were several international guests also opposed to liberalism within world-wide Anglicanism. They included Archbishop Yong Ping Chung from Malaysia; suffragan bishop of Europe Henry Scriven, Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon of Nigeria; and Peter Moore, president of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Pennsylvania.
The conference consisted of numerous workshops, worship services and discussion groups relating to the theme "Lift High the Cross."
Outside observers were expecting the issue of homosexuality to be a key subject, especially as the conference took place in the Greater Vancouver Diocese. Only six weeks ago, the diocese narrowly voted to permit the blessing of same-sex couples. However, Bishop Michael Ingham withheld authorization on the grounds that the vote was too narrow and that the subject may well be addressed at the ACC's General Synod meeting in Waterloo, Ontario, next month.
Robinson said that outsiders "thought it was going to be a major part [of discussion] but the truth of the matter [is] it wasn't. [Rather the aim] was to affirm who and what we are as Anglican Christians."