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Church Council Criticized by Exiled Clerics The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin July 9, 1968 Latvian, Estonian Say Group Fails To Condemn Soviets Uppsala, Sweden - (AP) Two leaders of Baltic churches in exile today accused the World Council of Churches of failing to speak up against what they called religious, persecution in the Soviet Union and in Baltic lands now ruled by the Soviet. The two were Archbishop Arvo Lusis of the Lutheran Latvian Church in Exile and Bishop J. Poska of the Estonian Orthodox Church in Canada. Estonians and Latvians have set, up an information center here which the World Council of Churches (WCC) is conducting its Fourth Assembly. Larger Delegations "I am surprised to see that, while the number of Christians decrease constantly in the Soviet Union, the Soviet church delegations tend to increase at every assembly," Archbishop Lusis said at a news conference "There is no doubt," added, "that there are some Communist members, maybe even members of the Soviet secret police, in the Russian delegation." Also attending the news conference was the Rev. Carl McIntire re of Collingswood, N. J. An outspoken radio preacher who heads the rival International Council of Christian Churches, McIntire is attending the WCC assembly as a newsman. Propaganda Charge He charged that the WCC is "a platform for Communist propaganda." Meanwhile, the 730 WCC voting delegates, representing, 300 million church members, were split up into committees yesterday and today were preparing recommendations on a variety of theological and secular subjects for later presentation to the assembly. The a assembly is the highest policy-making body of the 20-year-old council, whose 237 member - denominations include most major Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches throughout the world. |
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