wfn.org | Cold War Study Claims WCC Was `Infiltrated' by Communist Agents

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

11-February-2000 
00069 
 
    Cold War Study Claims WCC Was `Infiltrated' 
    by Communist Agents 
 
    Russian Orthodox leaders reject allegations in German book 
 
    by Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA - The World Council of Churches (WCC) was "infiltrated" by agents of 
eastern European intelligence agencies during the Cold War, and one of its 
former presidents was a KGB agent, a book recently published in Germany has 
alleged. 
 
    The book states that Metropolitan Nikodim, a prominent figure in the 
Russian Orthodox Church who was elected in 1975 as one of the WCC's 
presidents, was an agent of the KGB, the highly secret Soviet security 
agency. 
 
    Metropolitan Nikodim played a major role in the Russian church's 
decision to join the WCC in 1961.  He also served on the WCC's central and 
executive committees.  Metropolitan Nikodim died of a heart attack in 
September 1978 while in Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul I. 
 
    However, a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church has rejected 
the allegation that Metropolitan Nikodim worked for the KGB. 
 
    Mikhail Gundyaev, who represents the Russian church at the Geneva 
headquarters of the WCC, said the allegation was "impossible to imagine" 
for those who had known the church 
leader. 
 
    The 1074-page book - "National Protestantism and the Ecumenical 
Movement: Church Activities during the Cold War" - deals with the 
ecumenical movement from 1945 to 1990.  It states that in 1992 KGB files 
revealed that Metropolitan Nikodim had acted as an agent.  The book goes on 
to claim that interpreters sent to ecumenical gatherings by the Russian 
Orthodox Church had been "selected" by the KGB and wrote daily reports 
about the gatherings which were then passed to Nikodim to forward to the 
Soviet Council on Religious Affairs. 
 
    Gundyaev said that he would not reject the possibility that "some of 
the people in our church" may have had connections with the former security 
services.  However, while he had not been able to see the KGB files, he 
rejected absolutely the allegations about Nikodim. 
 
    The mere fact that Metropolitan Nikodim may have been mentioned in the 
files, or even given a "nickname," "does not prove anything," Gundyaev told 
ENI.  It was common practice, he said, for the KGB to keep files on 
prominent church leaders or even allocate cover names without the knowledge 
of the individuals concerned. 
 
    "Metropolitan Nikodim undertook great work to preserve the church from 
the influence of the atheist regime," he said.  Nikodim's intention in 
ensuring that the Russian Orthodox Church joined the WCC was to "preserve 
the existence of our church." 
 
    The new book is the result of several years of research co-ordinated by 
Gerhard Besier, a professor of church history at Heidelberg University in 
Germany. 
 
    Besier is well known for his controversial three-volume history of the 
Protestant churches in East Germany.  Some commentators have praised the 
thoroughness with which he investigated the archives of the East German 
secret service, the Stasi.  But others have claimed that in suggesting that 
they went too far in their co-operation with the communist authorities, 
Besier's works paint a one-sided picture of the churches in East Germany,. 
 
    The new book contains three major sections, each written by a different 
author, covering the role of the WCC and the German Protestant churches in 
the Cold War; the relationship between Protestantism, communism and the 
ecumenical movement in the United States; and the history of the Christian 
Peace Conference. 
 
    The section on the WCC and the German churches in the Cold War - 295 
pages long - was written by Armin Boyens, using archives of the WCC and the 
Lutheran World Federation, as well as those of the East German state 
secretariat for church affairs.  Boyens, a former head of the WCC's 
language service, later became a deacon for the German armed forces. 
 
    Presenting the new book at a meeting in Berlin last month, Besier said 
that copies of confidential reports and papers drawn up by the WCC had been 
found in the archives of the Stasi.  Speaking of the WCC's activities 
during the Cold War, he said that the organization had believed that it 
could help to bring about a better social and economic order through 
diverse social and political programs.  Many ecumenists used ecumenical 
social ethics based on "socialist" models, he claimed, to criticize the 
Western model of society.  In future, the WCC should concentrate on 
theological rather than social and ethical issues, he said, according to a 
report by the German Protestant news agency, epd. 
 
    Asked to comment on the allegations concerning Metropolitan Nikodim, 
WCC spokesperson Karin Achtelstetter told ENI that it was not WCC practice 
to comment on individuals who had been active in the organization with the 
endorsement of their member 
church. 
 
    She said that the WCC welcomed the fact that "such a large study has 
been devoted to the subject of the WCC and the Cold War" and added that the 
WCC was "greatly interested in a serious examination" of the Cold War 
period.  The WCC allowed researchers, including Boyens, "unrestricted 
access to its archives." 
 
    But she said that the authors of the new book had not "done justice to 
the extensive body of source material available to them." 
 
    "The source material examined by Boyens can only be dealt with properly 
if a North-South perspective is included as well as the East-West 
analysis," which the study had not done.  Because of the "fixation" on the 
East-West dichotomy in analyzing the source material, the interpretation of 
WCC documents remained "trapped in a Cold War mentality," she said. 
 
    Pointing out that there were many researchers working on different 
aspects of the WCC and the Cold War, she said that the new book would have 
to "stand up to the test of public discussion by experts in the field." 
 
    She added that in 1997 the WCC's general secretary, Konrad Raiser, had 
told a German magazine that there had been a "decidedly hesitant" response 
after he had written to all Orthodox church authorities requesting access 
to "relevant material" for a "reassessment" of the Cold War period.  In 
part that was because few Orthodox churches had been able to keep their own 
detailed records of their dealings with the state authorities during the 
Cold War period. 

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