Ukrainian delegation takes part in ecumenical peacemaking conference in Warsaw
This was reported by the UCCRO website.
The consultation was organized by the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Polish Ecumenical Council. The international event was held under a verse from the Bible (Amos 5:24): “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!!”
In his speech at the conference, Pastor Anatoliy Raychynets, representative of the Chairman of the UCCRO and Deputy Secretary General of the Ukrainian Bible Society, shared his thoughts on how Ukrainian churches perceive the concept of just peace.
“For more than a thousand days, our people have been courageously defending their homeland, homes, and the very right to life,” he said. “Every day is a miracle!”
Pastor Raychynets told how the “Russian world” came and what it brought to the territory of Ukraine: “The seizure of church buildings for the needs of the Russian army, a ban on worship, murdered clergy, torture. Therefore, we, as ministers of the Church, ask for something that is not typical for pastors - we ask to help Ukraine with weapons and everything necessary so that the Ukrainian Defense Forces can protect the lives of children, women and all people because the Russian military came to kill us.”
“Just peace comes when evil is punished, and justice is restored,” summarized Pastor A. Raychynets, noting what the concept of just peace means to him personally.
During the panel discussion on “The Right to Defense and Self-Defense”, Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All-Ukraine addressed the participants of the international event and emphasized the danger of the Kremlin's instrumentalization of religion and the use of religious Russian institutions, primarily the Russian Orthodox Church, to justify and support aggression against Ukraine.
“We are all witnesses to the fact that the Moscow Patriarchate and its head Kirill Gundyaev are not the only ones publicly proclaiming Russian aggression as a “holy war”. All of Russia's major religious centers are involved in justifying the war, through which the Kremlin tyranny (as it did during the Cold War) seeks to influence the position and decisions of the Churches worldwide, the decisions of international and ecumenical organizations, in particular, such as the World Council of Churches,” Metropolitan Epifaniy emphasized.
The European Consultation on Just Peace was also attended by Stanislav Nosov, President of the Ukrainian Union Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Bishop Sandor Zan-Fabian of the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, Bishop Pavlo Schwartz of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine, Ihor Bandura, Deputy Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Evangelical Christians Baptists, Fr Ihor Shaban, Chairman of the UGCC Commission on Interfaith and Interreligious Relations, and other representatives.
In the spring of this year, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations met with a delegation of the CEC. The parties discussed the state of religious freedom in Ukraine during the war, humanitarian aid to refugees and other pressing issues.
