In a letter to The Times, Rowan Williams raises the question of how the Russian Orthodox Church can best engage with the Russian nation over the invasion of Ukraine.

Sir, Last weekend Orthodox Christians in many countries celebrated “Forgiveness Sunday”, the day before Great Lent begins. Many will have hoped to hear from the Orthodox Church in Russia some acknowledgement of the shocking — not to say blasphemous — absurdity of Orthodox Christians engaging, at this season of all seasons, in indiscriminate killing of the innocent, insanely reckless attacks on nuclear facilities (endangering their own homeland as well as the wider environment), the unashamed breach of ceasefire agreements, and an attack on one of the most significant Holocaust memorials in Europe.

It is not too late for the leadership of the Church in Russia to call for (at the very least) a credible ceasefire as Lent begins. Those of us who owe a lasting debt to the thought and witness of Christian Russia through the centuries find it hard to believe that all the moral norms of warfare painstakingly explored by Christians in both East and West from the earliest ages onwards have been forgotten. 

The Right Rev Lord Williams of Oystermouth
Archbishop of Canterbury 2002-12; Cardiff