A leading role” “

Intensive and extensive diplomatic interventions with heads of government and of state to seek to avert an armed conflict in Iraq are being conducted by the representatives of the various Christian Churches in their respective countries at the present time. On the initiative of the World Council of Churches (WCC), a meeting of the Christian Churches of Europe was urgently convened in Berlin on Wednesday 5 April. It was attended by the general secretary of the KEK, Keith Clements, the president of the Council of the Evangelic Church of Germany, Manfred Kock, and delegations of the National Council of Churches of the United States (NCC-USA) and Council of the Churches of the Middle East (MECC). In the course of their meeting, the representatives of the Churches asked to meet German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to express to him their opinion on the Iraqi crisis, especially after the presentation of the first weapons inspectors’ report to the UN Security Council. The Churches believe that Europe can “play a leading role” in the current crisis. At the end of the meeting a document was put out with the title: “Church Leaders Together against the War in Iraq”, in which the conviction that “a preventive military attack” against Iraq would be “immoral and contrary to the Charter of the United Nations” is reaffirmed. In Russia too, the Orthodox Church is making diplomatic efforts. On 22 January, the Patriarch of Moscow Alexis II together with Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch had a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. In the course of the meeting discussion also touched on the Iraqi crisis. “We don’t believe that all the evil of the world is concentrated in a single country and in a single man”, said Patriarch Ignatius at a press briefing and he pointed out that from 11 September to the present day, no convincing proof has yet been presented to the international community that would indicate an Iraqi involvement in the terrorist attacks. In France, the National Council of the Reformed Church sent an open letter to President Jacques Chirac to ask him to “oppose with all his strength and with all the resources at his disposal the outbreak of a war in Iraq”. Reiterating their “total opposition to any form of preventive war”, the Reformed Churches ask the French government to take all “appropriate political and economic measures” for the construction of peace in the region. The Anglican bishops of Wales have also entered the field: they have sent a communiqué to the Commission of foreign affairs of the House of Commons and, for his knowledge, to the prime minister Tony Blair. In their document, the bishops say that “the proofs presented by the administration of the USA and the UK in support of a war against Iraq are far from being convincing”. But even if the proofs were to be incontrovertible, the Anglican Church would still say “no” to war: “We are convinced – write the bishops – that the loss of innocent lives would be excessive”.