Orthodox Council Leader Sees Boon in Diversity

In the 1950s, the National Council of Churches, with mainline Protestantism enjoying an Indian summer of prosperity, was a prime mover in defining the moral-religious agenda of the nation.

Today, a council weakened by the malaise in mainline denominations needs to cooperate with other religious groups to hope for any influence.

“For the sake of a Christian role in a civil society,” the council needs to embrace the diversity of American religious life rather than stand above it, says the council’s first Eastern Orthodox president.

“Ironically, it’s in being a catalyst for a more pluralistic society” that the council can play a more central role in public policy debates, the Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky said in an interview.

It will not be accomplished by “re-establishing an establishment,” he said.

The council, still the country’s largest ecumenical organization, includes most of the country’s prominent Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations.

Kishkovsky, secretary for ecumenical and external affairs of the Orthodox Church in America, was installed last month in Pittsburgh to a two-year term as president of the council. He takes over in a time of transition for the council, when efforts are being made to revitalize the organization.

The Rev. Arie R. Brouwer resigned as chief executive of the council in June in a dispute over reorganization plans. In spite of inflation, the contributions from member churches have remained stagnant at around $12 million to $13 million over the last 15 years.

While some evangelical churches have grown rapidly and the number of Roman Catholics in the United States has jumped 40% in the last four decades, many of the largest churches within the council have suffered significant membership losses. The council today represents 32 church bodies with a membership of 42 million.

Particularly as sectarian tensions divide other nations, religious groups in the United States need to be a model of showing how people who disagree on volatile issues can work toward a common ground, Kishkovsky said.

For example, Kishkovsky, who was born in Warsaw, said that in Poland there is a concern among the Protestant and Orthodox minorities that the Catholic Church could be “potentially oppressive” as it gains political influence with the democratic reforms going on there.

Kishkovsky said it would be “foolhardy” for the U.S. council to set as its only goal bringing in the 54-million-member Catholic Church as a member, but they can work toward a closer partnership.

“I really want to work on that,” said Kishkovsky, who was part of a 12-member council delegation that met with Pope John Paul II in April.

Kishkovsky, 46, who also is rector of an Orthodox church in suburban New York, includes among his other goals emphasizing the spiritual foundation of the council and persuading the agency to tackle tough issues such as abortion and homosexuality.

“Many of us have recognized the need to bring into the council a spiritual, biblical dimension,” said Kishkovsky, a member of the council’s governing board since 1979. “It has been seen that there is kind of an anemia of the spiritual.”

But the tendency to focus on social policy issues with little regard to personal spirituality is not limited to the council, he said.

“I think there is a strain in American religion that is highly pragmatic,” he said.

Along with service, there needs to be emphasis on piety, prayer and worship in council deliberations, he said.

But he said that does not mean that the council should duck volatile issues such as abortion and homosexuality as it has in the past for the sake of unity.

“I believe that variety, pluralism, on pretty divisive issues isn’t something that needs to be feared,” Kishkovsky said. “It’s necessary for the civil society.”