Metropolitan Kirill: Russian Church’s participation in the World Council of Churches is important, for its self-isolation is disastrous
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=2237
Moscow, November 9, Interfax - It is important for the Moscow Patriarchate to participate in the World Council of Churches (WCC) so that it may bear witness to Orthodoxy and see the developments in the Christian world, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, has stated.
‘It is on this platform (WCC - IF) that we have an opportunity to see at once what is going on in the Christendom... and to get a clear idea of the direction in which modern Christianity is going, to bear witness to our position and to persuade others’, the metropolitan said in a talk at the Mayak radio station.
Answering a question from a listener when the Russian Church will pull out of the WCC, for ‘blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked’, he answered: ‘As soon as we see that the World Council of Churches is a council of the wicked, we will pull out of it, but for the present, we have no such impression’.
Metropolitan Kirll remarked that if anybody says the Russian Church ‘should withdraw into isolation and stop bearing witness to its position in a loud voice before the whole world, than this man should prove clearly why we should do it’. He said he had never heard from anybody any clear argument for such decision.
‘Indeed, to develop the idea, if Russia should withdraw into isolation, pull out of the UN and regional organizations, can we live in isolation in today’s world? It is a suicide... No Orthodox Church has posed this question in the way it has been posed in our country’, the hierarch stressed.
He added that the Moscow Patriarchate had some differences with the Christian world, but it does not mean that it should break relations with it, since it will lead to the loss of ‘good reputation our Church enjoys today’.
‘As long as there is an opportunity for bearing witness to the truth of Orthodoxy before the whole Christian world, we will do it.' Metropolitan Kirill said in conclusion.
