The Church of England has ditched all £20 million of its investments in Russian companies in response to what the archbishops of Canterbury and York described as Vladimir Putin’s “act of evil” in Ukraine.Church leaders have also called for an end to the “immoral flood of corrupt money” from Russia into Britain.As a direct result of the invasion, the church confirmed to The Times today that it was immediately selling its investments in Russian firms and had issued a ban on any further investment.Through the Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board, the church has a portfolio of £13 billion in investments, with its largest holdings in companies including Meta (formerly Facebook), Amazon, Google’s parent company Alphabet and Samsung.A spokesman said: “In response to the attack on Ukraine by Russia and supporting the sanctions announced by the UK and other governments . . . the Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board issued instructions to our managers to exit all of our current direct holdings in Russian companies and to make no further investments in Russian companies.
Representatives from the six major religions are among more than 1,000 faith leaders to have signed a letter to the prime minister urging him to reconsider the controversial nationality and borders bill, which goes through the report stage in the House of Lords today (Monday).The leaders, representing the UK’s major faith groups, say they are “horrified and appalled about the potential repercussions” of the bill and called on Boris Johnson to make urgent changes “even at this late stage”.Signatories include the former archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Zara Mohammed, and the senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism, Jonathan Wittenberg.The faith leaders say the 11th-hour plea is a crucial last opportunity to make changes. It states: “While there is still conflict and injustice in the world, there will always be desperate people needing to seek sanctuary from war, persecution and suffering. We cannot close our door on them, but this bill does just that.“We assert that the values that bind UK citizens together, especially those concerning human dignity and life, will be fundamentally damaged by this bill.”The letter calls on the prime minister to make substantial changes to the bill. They include abandoning the government’s plan to criminalise and restrict the rights of all people arriving in the UK seeking refugee protection outside pre-arranged schemes, including those coming via irregular routes, such as by boats or lorries. The signatories say this policy was made “without a basis in evidence or morality”.They also call on the government to urgently address the bill’s failure to establish safe routes, which would help people seeking sanctuary to reach the UK, saying that this failure fundamentally undermines its aims. They urge the prime minister to be “compassionate and ambitious” in opening schemes such as family reunion, resettlement and routes for unaccompanied refugee children in Europe.The letter calls on the prime minister to show “political leadership” and promote “compassion, human life and dignity”. Faith leaders have asked the prime minister to meet to discuss their concerns.The letter was coordinated by the ecumenical Joint Public Issues Team, made up of the Methodist Church in Britain, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the United Reformed Church, working with the Church of Scotland.
Our joint parish Holy Communion service tomorrow is at St Peter's Church, Hascombe at 10am. Our celebrant is Reverend Rutton Viccajee.<br>We hope you can join us but if you're elsewhere or housebound please click on the link below to take part in the service online.<a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81873856040?pwd=alJQQllCdHNpQVVMOUhjbEJJZVhmQT09">https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81873856040?pwd=alJQQllCdHNpQVVMOUhjbEJJZVhmQT09</a><br>There is also a service at St Mary and All Saints' Church, Dunsfold tomorrow at 4pm. It's our monthly Funday@4 service. This event is aimed primarily at children and families but everyone is welcome.
My Lords you may have seen that the Archbishop of Canterbury and I have already spoken about the unprovoked attack on Ukraine as an act of great evil. This is a dark hour for Europe. We have called on Anglican churches to make this coming Sunday a day of prayer for peace and on Tuesday encourage parishes to join with the Anglican diocese in Europe in prayer at 6 pm, especially for those who minister and witness for peace in Ukraine itself where we have chaplaincies and minister alongside other denominations and faith communities. We are all invited to join with Pope Francis in making Ash Wednesday a day of fasting and prayer for peace.Perhaps in the west, we have taken peace for granted. The horrors being visited on Ukraine must be a wake-up call for us that peace is something you need to work at. What is happening in Ukraine is truly shocking, but, sadly it is not surprising. We have seen it coming. Ukraine now stands alone, unprotected by the treaties that protect us and allow us to believe that peace is a normal state of affairs. But it isn’t. Peace is a choice. It is a decision that we need to make each day about the way we live and about our responsibilities to and with our neighbour, be that in our family, in our local community, or between the nations of the world. And we need the policies, the wisdom, the tenacity and the international resolve that will deliver it.Previous generations knew this. They knew it, because they had experienced the horrors of war that most of us haven’t. In the post-war period we invested in international bodies and associations that would bind us to each other. In 1950, for instance, Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister, said when announcing a plan to pool coal and steel production, that the plan was motivated so that solidarity in production would make war between France and Germany “not only unthinkable, but materially impossible.”But Ukraine is not defended by NATO. What we have seen from Vladimir Putin in the last few days is a terrible, flagrant disregard of the Ukrainian people’s legitimate right to self-determination. As the noble Lady Baroness Goldie has put it, he has chosen war.Right now, as well as generous, humanitarian aid and support for refugees, about which I hope the minister will say more in his summing up – we need to know what is happening - we must use all our diplomatic muscle and energy, stringent economic sanctions, and focused political will to force Russia to step back from this aggression, withdraw its troops and silence the guns, not least because effective sanctions will mean many innocent Russians suffer as well. Our actions must be swift and cohesive if they are to be decisive. Jesus urged his followers to be peacemakers, not simply peacelovers. This is an important distinction, because it is a call to action. First, in support of Ukraine, and especially the many innocent children and families, potential refugees living with this conflict and its consequences, and support for those who are bravely protesting on the streets of Russia. But peace, lasting peace, requires more. It requires a new commitment to international instruments of law and order, accountability and investment so that we make peace and choose peace, not just hope to keep it. The suffering of Ukraine, the imperialist ambition of Russia, our own acceptance that ‘immoral flood of corrupt money that flows (from Russia) through London’ has to stop.And as followers of Jesus, we pray because we believe God’s grace has the final word, not the horrors of sin, not death. But we also pray because that prayer will shape our will and will shape our resolve The prayers of Christian people and of all people of faith and goodwill are with our government, and with all the leaders of the free world, as we both implore Russia to change course, but also determine to play our part in the active pursuit of peace in our world today.
