The World Council of Churches
(WCC) urged its Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member churches on Thursday
to lobby their congregations and national governments to support a political
solution to the war in
Syria.
The Geneva-based WCC made the appeal after
a meeting with international envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi and former United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who both asked Christian leaders to help mobilize
public opinion for peace.
The appeal by the WCC, representing about a
quarter of the world's 2.2 billion Christians, follows similar calls by the
Roman Catholic Church -- which makes up over half of global Christianity -- and
many evangelical leaders.
"Churches must continue to raise their
voice in their congregations and with their governments," said a WCC
communique after the meeting near Geneva on Wednesday.
WCC General Secretary Rev Olaf Fyske Tveit
told Reuters there was "consensus in the whole Christian family" for
a negotiated peace in Syria and Brahimi and Annan convinced church leaders it
could happen "if there is enough political support."
He noted that even many United States
evangelicals, who mostly backed earlier US military interventions in Afghanistan
and Iraq, had spoken out against military strikes in Syria after a poison gas
attack outside Damascus killed hundreds of people.
"I've seen no Christian leader voice
support for those strikes," Tveit said. "The time has passed when
anyone believed that one side could win. The only way forward is to support the
political solution."
A US-Russian deal to remove Syria's
chemical weapons averted the looming prospect of a US military strike, but
international mediation since then has not yet been able to agree on opening
so-called "Geneva 2" peace talks.
The WCC communique urged the United Nations
Security Council to set a date for peace talks and take steps to de-escalate
the conflict, including an arms embargo and measures to stop the flow of
foreign combatants into Syria.
It also urged full access for humanitarian
aid by church-related relief agencies in Syria and among refugees in neighboring
countries.
Tveit said Brahimi urged church leaders to
help "mobilize for a common understanding of the need for a political
process" and Annan asked them to spread the message to "go beyond
'not go to war' but build peace."
Churches have already been active in
several countries in opposing the war in Syria, where the local Christian
minority has come under attack from Islamist militants and many have fled
abroad.
At the Vatican, Pope Francis led Roman
Catholics in a world-wide day of prayer on Sept. 7 for peace in Syria.
In Britain, where parliament voted against
joining any US-led military strikes, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
warned the government against "rushing to judgment" and taking steps
that could have unforeseeable consequences in the Muslim world.
Leith Anderson, president of the influential
US National Association of Evangelicals, said: "Most of our leaders think
military action against Syria is the wrong way to go."
Geoff Tunicliffe, Secretary General of the
World Evangelical Alliance, said Christian leaders in the Middle East agreed
that "any military intervention by the United States will have a
detrimental effect on the situation, and in particular for Christians in
Syria."
Russian Orthodox Also Active
Metropolitan Hilarion, foreign minister of
the Russian Orthodox Church, said US church leaders "can play a special
role because they can influence the institutions of American government and the
president."
Hilarion, who also took part in the WCC
meeting, told Reuters Moscow's support for the Syrian government was not an
issue at the meeting because all church leaders present "were unanimous
with regards to the inadmissibility of air strikes."
He said the Moscow Patriarchate's position
coincided with Russian policy, which he described as support for the Damascus
government but not for President Bashar al-Assad specifically, but he was there
representing his church.
Leaders of six Orthodox and Catholic
churches in Syria also attended the meeting, as did representatives of the
Church of England, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and two US Protestant churches -- Church of the Brethren and Christian Church (Disciples
of Christ) -- active in peace efforts.
REUTERS