Two Jewish organizations have welcomed the suspension of Archbishop Valerian Trifa, who has been accused of leading the murder of Jews and Christians in Rumania during World War II, from the general board of the National Council of Churches (NCC). The NCC’s executive committee was informed Friday that the Orthodox Church in America has asked Trifa to absent himself from all further meetings of the NCC’s general board, until all charges against him will have been dealt with by the courts.
Trifa, head of the Rumanian Orthodox Episcopate Church of America, faces denaturalization hearings on charges by the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, that in applying to enter the country he lied about his membership in the fascist Rumanian Iron Guard and his participation in the murder of Jews and others in Bucharest in 1941.
Rabbi Henry Siegman, executive vice-president of the Synagogue Council of America, who shortly before the announcement made an unprecedented address to the NCC’s executive committee, called Trifa’s suspension “an act of moral courage and responsibility. It is an expression of the Council’s opposition to anti-Semitism and of its awareness that the Holocaust remains a constant challenge to the religious conscience of all mankind.”
A STEP FORWARD
The American Jewish Committee said today that “In light of the record of Archbishop Trifa’s unremitting anti-Semitism and pro-Nazi activities, the American Jewish Committee had cause to hope the National Council of Churches would have taken forthright action to remove Trifa from its board.”
Nevertheless, the statement by Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, the AJ Committee’s director of inter-religious affairs, continued, “we acknowledge that the NCC’s present action is a step forward in indicating the disapproval by the National Council of Trifa’s anti-Semitic attitudes and behavior.”
Tanenbaum noted that on Jan. 19 the AJ Committee provided the NCC with “primary Rumanian sources which made it abundantly clear that Archbishop Trifa is an admitted anti-Semite and participated in pogroms that massacred thousands of Jews and Christians.” Tanenbaum added that the AJ Committee believes that the “de facto suspension” of Trifa will strengthen U.S. government efforts which “hopefully will lead to his deportation as an undesirable alien who has lied to gain entry to our country.”
In his address to the NCC executive committee Friday, Rabbi Siegman said the Jewish community was asking the NCC a “moral question. How can a man accused of participating in the Holocaust, in the destruction of European Jewry, be listed as a member of the board of an organization that invokes the name of the Church of Jesus Christ?”
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