WCC to visit India's persecuted believers

|PIC1|The team comprising of church representatives from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia who will visit churches, ecumenical organisations and civil society movements in India from 21 to 27 September.

The ecumenical team, known as ‘Living Letters’, says it wants to listen, learn, share approaches and help confront challenges in order to overcome violence and promote and pray for peace. They are visiting in the context of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence in preparation for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in 2011.

The statement said the focus of the weeklong visit would be on the Indian churches' witness to peace with justice in the face of mass poverty, social exclusion and violence against women, Dalits and Christians. There will also be encounters with church leaders, peace activists, and representatives of interfaith peace initiatives and of Dalit movements.

The visit will bring the team of Living Letters to the Indian capital, New Delhi, and to the south eastern states of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

Anti-Christian violence broke out in Orissa after a Hindu fundamentalist leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, was murdered in August 2008. Hindus blamed Christians for killing Saraswati even though Maoist rebels had publicly claimed responsibility for the murder.

Following the swami’s death, Hindu mobs attacked Christians, burning their homes, shops, churches and orphanages. More than 30,000 Christians from Orissa were forced to take shelter in refugee camps where living conditions were poor, or in the jungle where they were in danger of being attacked by wild animals.

About 4,500 Christian homes were burned and 180 churches destroyed. At least 60 Christians were killed, according to the Orissa government’s report, but church leaders in Orissa report higher figures and have accused the government of intentionally undercounting the number of deaths.

Earlier in the month, the WCC's Central Committee stated its concern “about the alarming trend of growing communal violence and religious intolerance in India” and adopted a minute noting "a decline of religious freedom in many parts of the world and an increase of religious intolerance".

The Central Committee also condemned caste-based discrimination, saying that “it contradicts the Christian teaching that all are created equal in the image of God”.