c. 2003 Religion News Service

Presbyterians Speak Out on Israel-Palestine, Future of Iraq

DENVER (RNS) The nation’s largest Presbyterian church issued a stern rebuke of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and American financial aid that keeps Palestinians “under the yoke of Israel’s heavy-handed military occupation.”

The 2.5 million-member Presbyterian Church (USA), holding its annual General Assembly legislative meeting here, approved a 13-page statement on the conflict on Wednesday (May 28) as President Bush mulls a high-stakes summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

Delegates called on leaders from both sides to “be serious, active, and diligent about seeking peace for their peoples; or, if they are unwilling or unable, to step down and make room for other leaders who will and can.”

The resolution was especially critical of Israel, both for building settlements on Palestinian lands and the “arbitrary arrests, detention, humiliation, torture, and harassment” of Palestinian civilians. Delegates also called on the League of Arab Nations to pressure Palestinians to halt the suicide bombings that prompted the Israeli crackdown.

The statement lamented that the church’s voice and “call for justice and peace has continued to go unheeded. Now it must speak up and speak out again, perhaps in stronger language.”

The moderator of last year’s assembly, the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, was born in Palestine and tried to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinian Christians.

The Rev. Sue Westfall, pastor of St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Ariz., and chairman of the assembly’s peacemaking committee, said the church’s voice cannot be ignored. “We are witnesses to the Prince of Peace and are called to be reconcilers and peacemakers in the world,” she said.

In other business, the 548 delegates said the United States must reexamine its new policy of preemptive strikes against perceived enemies, saying the doctrine cannot be morally justified and threatens the stability of the global community.

In a statement entitled “Iraq and Beyond,” the church voiced skepticism over the legitimacy of the recent U.S. war against Iraq but called for “strong support and deep concern” for American troops. The church, which publicly opposed the war, said parishioners are not required to support the denomination’s position.

The church’s overseas missions agency added its own concerns that increased resentment in Muslim countries threatens church personnel. Nearly a dozen people were killed last year in attacks on a Presbyterian church and hospital in Pakistan.

“The conflict between the United States and Iraq is a challenge to all of us to live into the calling of our Lord to show compassion, seek justice and demonstrate commitment to the building up of life beyond the war,” the resolution said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Iraqi Religious Leaders Seek Humanitarian Aid, Democratic Government

(RNS) Iraqi religious leaders issued a joint statement Wednesday (May 28) calling for increased international humanitarian assistance and a permanent Iraqi government that protects all religious and ethnic groups.

The statement was released at a conference in Amman, Jordan, that was convened by the World Conference on Religion and Peace.

More than 20 religious leaders, representing Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims as well as Christians in Iraq, recommended that international institutions increase their humanitarian assistance by cooperating more with Iraqi religious groups and social institutions that include women’s and youth organizations.

They also urged that “the permanent Iraqi government be built on the basis of direct, free, democratic elections, a constitution and the rule of law that protects equally all religious, ethnic and national groupings, while maintaining Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The leaders also demanded that coalition forces abide by humanitarian requirements of international treaties and urged the formation of a temporary national government as soon as possible.

Their recommendations were endorsed by the full conference, which included 40 other international religious leaders and diplomats and representatives of humanitarian agencies.

“Pledging common action to assure a just society in Iraq, these religious leaders demonstrate that religion can be a powerful force for peace and for affirming our common humanity,” said Prince El-Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, moderator of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, in a statement.

Founded in 1970, the world conference is a global coalition of representatives of major religions that are committed to promoting peace.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Belarus Christian Leader Seeks Political Asylum in the United States

MOSCOW (RNS) One of Belarus’ most persecuted Christian leaders is seeking political asylum in the United States, saying the degree of religious repression in the former Soviet republic has become unbearable and dangerous.

“We have had to practically go underground. There are large fines for praying at home. You can even end up in prison,” said Father Yan Spasyuk, 36, administrator of the tiny Belarussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, in an interview Wednesday (May 28) from Highland Park, N.J.

Spasyuk said the situation grew especially acute after a draconian new religion law was signed in October by Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, sometimes described as Europe’s last dictator. The law strongly favors the country’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church and lays the legal groundwork for a clampdown on minority faiths in the country of 10 million between Russia and Poland.

A private consultant in Brooklyn who helped Spasyuk prepare the application for the Immigration and Naturalization Service said the priest has a strong chance.

“It is quite a serious case. He must have brought in eight or 10 kilograms of material, photographs, videos, newspaper articles,” said Global General Service’s Leonid, who declined to give his last name.

The plight of Spasyuk’s 7,000-member Belarussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church figured prominently in the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report released in October. The report documents Spasyuk’s attempts to erect a church building on his property and his subsequent arrest. In August, security forces sealed off Spasyuk’s village of Pohranichny, near the Polish border, and used bulldozers to demolish the brick church constructed by parishioners.

Spasyuk, who left behind in Belarus a wife and three school-age children, is petitioning the I.N.S. to grant his family political asylum, too. The priest is currently sharing two rooms in a Highland Park house with Metropolitan Alexander (Sologub), head of the Belarussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which has five parishes and several hundred parishioners in the United States.

If Spasyuk is granted political asylum he plans on working as the rector of Highland Park’s Zhirovetskaya Mother of God Church. He denied reports in the Russian press in April that he was working as a service station attendant, noting that it would be illegal under the terms of his current U.S. visa.

“I can’t even get paid to work in the church,” he said. “I can pray, of course, but just as a volunteer.”

_ Frank Brown

Presbyterians Vote to Tighten Oversight of World Council of Churches

DENVER (RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted Wednesday (May 28) to tighten oversight of the financially troubled World Council of Churches, but turned back an attempt to limit the denomination’s financial contributions to the Geneva-based ecumenical body.

Delegates at the church’s General Assembly legislative meeting voted to affirm the work of the WCC, a global body of 342 Protestant and Orthodox churches, but want to know why more churches don’t support the WCC.

A report prepared by the church’s Committee on Ecumenical Relations was approved on a voice vote. Delegates, however, added language that asked why “so few churches choose to be a part of the WCC” and whether U.S. and European churches have a “disproportionate and unjust degree of power within the WCC in relation to larger but less wealthy churches.”

The 2.5 million-member church is the nation’s largest contributor to the WCC, last year giving about $1.3 million. Ninety-eight percent of WCC contributions come from U.S. or European churches; 53 percent of WCC-member churches do not give money to the WCC.

The WCC, like other collaborative church bodies, is facing mounting budget deficits _ approaching $3.7 million this year _ and has exhausted its reserve funds. A special commission looking for ways to reform the council is considering a host of staff and program cutbacks.

The Presbyterian report found that “our participation in the WCC fulfills a basic commitment to our understandings of the unity and mission of the church,” but cautioned that the nonparticipation of evangelical and Catholic churches in the WCC reflects an “imperfect and incomplete” vision of Christian unity.

The convention’s Catholicity and Ecumencial Relations committee rejected a move to permanently limit church contributions to $1 million per year.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Quote of the Day: Clarence Hickey, lay leader of a Bethesda, Md., Presbyterian church

(RNS) “It was like winning the Super Bowl. People jumped out of their seats, arms in the air. It was a magnificent moment.”

_ Clarence Hickey, senior lay leader at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Md., whose pastor, the Rev. Susan R. Andrews was elected May 24 as moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) at its General Assembly in Denver. Describing how members gathered at his church to watch their pastor’s victory online via a large screen, Hickey was quoted by The Washington Post.

DEA END RNS