The German hosts fear the worst: “I assume that there will be clear signals that Israel will be declared an apartheid state,” said Annette Kurschus, Chairwoman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). She does not want that. That was “a no-go,” emphasized Volker Jung, Church President of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau. He hopes that the debates “remain controllable”. But more harm is looming: from a delegation of warmongers from the Russian Orthodox Church.
It can become a scandal when around 4,000 Christians from all over the world meet in Karlsruhe for the general assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC). This is an association of more than 350 Protestant and Orthodox churches. Because of the issues of Israel and Russia, provocations and deep rifts in non-Catholic Christianity are possible.
With reference to Israel, it would be the escalation of older tendencies: at the instigation of African and Middle Eastern churches and with the benevolence of some Western representatives, there has long been great sympathy in the WCC for the boycott demands of the anti-Israel BDS movement (“Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions”). . “The WCC has recognized for many years,” said Australian Peter Prove, director of the WCC commission on international affairs recently in Chrismon, “that certain forms of economic sanctions are legitimate forms of non-violent resistance to military occupation.”
Already in 2020, EKD Protestants noticed that there was even more threat in Karlsruhe, namely the title of Israel as an apartheid state: five regional churches – including the Westphalian with Kurschus and the one in Hesse-Nassau with Jung – published “guiding principles” explicitly in advance of the General Assembly. on “Israel-Palestine” and expressed “energetic resistance” when criticism of Israeli policies used “anti-Semitic forms of expression”. They rejected a “total boycott” à la BDS.
But they also wrote: “We fundamentally recognize boycott measures as a legitimate, non-violent form of political resistance against acts that violate international law.” to labels that replace differentiated analysis”.
But although the regional churches argued very softly, they were already receiving harsh criticism from groups within the church. In a statement, the “Kairos Palestine Solidarity Network”, which is based on WCC pronouncements, expressly insisted on terms such as “colonialism” or “ethnic cleansing” to characterize Israel. And apartheid is “not limited to the one South African model”.
If such groups, which are not without influence in WCC bodies, join forces with African representatives, it could be like this year’s Documenta in Karlsruhe. Meron Mendel, director of the Anne Frank educational institution, who analyzed anti-Semitic tendencies at the Kassel art festival, fears this. “Even if the discussions at the WCC General Assembly cannot be predicted, a development analogous to the Documenta is to be feared in the positioning towards Israel,” said Mendel WELT. “In the effort to give space to the Global South, anti-Western and, above all, one-sided anti-Israel ideologies can be protected under the heading of ‘anti-colonialism’.”
Mendel considers the regional church text to be an “important and well-considered position that opposes any sweeping condemnation of Israel and especially any anti-Semitism.” However, the fact that church groups in Germany rejected this “makes it clear that there are groups in this country who want to use attitudes from certain parts of the Global South to reinforce their own ideologies”.
It can become even more dangerous if such currents form an alliance with Russian orthodoxy. The Moscow Patriarchate under Cyril I, who vehemently supports Putin’s war of aggression, is also present in Karlsruhe. Ukrainians are also said to come, and a decidedly pro-Russian declaration is unlikely.
But that no clear commitment against Putin’s imperialism can be expected either, became apparent in June when the WCC central committee discussed the war. Although it condemned the Russian attack as an “illegal invasion”, it criticized, unlike the EKD, arms deliveries to Ukraine and tendencies to “destroy the international security architecture created after the Second World War”. As if this “security architecture” had not been the subjugation of Eastern Europe. Disregarding the move away from Moscow by Ukrainian Orthodox, it said: “We recognize the commitment of the Moscow Patriarchate, which represents the WCC communion in both Russia and Ukraine.”
The WCC’s fondness for Russian Orthodoxy dates back to the Cold War, says Katharina Kunter, professor of church history in Helsinki. When the Russian Orthodox were admitted to the WCC in 1961, it was hoped “that orthodox theology would enrich western-style theology and that official dialogue would break open the front lines of the Cold War,” said Kunter WELT. In addition, the admission was “an important sign to the Vatican, which traditionally saw itself as a rival to the Russian Orthodox Church”.
With this, the WCC “made an interesting global Christian move ahead”. However, “what was suppressed,” says Kunter, “is that the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church were and are very closely linked to state power both in Soviet times and then under the Putin regime in Russia.” The WCC does not want to risk a separation because the Russian Orthodox Church, at least formally, represents one of the largest member churches “and because the WCC continues to think in terms of the long outdated Cold War détente policy”.
In addition, “the churches of Africa and the Global South have been greatly upgraded in the WCC for honorable anti-colonial reasons”. For a long time now, however, it has “no longer just been about the justified accusation of human rights violations and equal representation in the WCC. It’s about identity-political attitudes that are generally directed against ’the West’ and, with growing conservatism, against the ordination of women or Western life models, for example in love and partnership.” anti-Western impulses of African churches. They are based in part on longstanding Soviet-era relationships.”
It would be all the easier for these alliances as the WCC no longer played a major role in the Western European churches and there were hardly any objections from Europe. “Consequently, this ultra-conservative alliance could ensure that Russian propaganda on the Ukraine war is spared and that Israel is attacked even more sweepingly and harshly than it was already in the WCC.”
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