An Episcopal priest who is also a journalist has charged that it is “simply untrue” that the National Council of Churches (NCC) has removed Rumanian Archbishop Valerian Trifa from its directorate Speaking in the Temple Rodolf Shalom in Pittsburgh, on the eve of the NCC’s three-day meeting which began Tuesday in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Rev. Lester Kinsolving, a religious columnist and broadcaster from Washington, said “the historic and monumental scandal of a Nazi war criminal among the directors” of the NCC continues.
“Trifa, who is presently under indictment by the Department of Justice for lying to obtain his citizenship, is still a member of the governing board of this nominally Christian agency,” Kinsolving said. “I say nominally because this council is so desperately anxious to retain membership that it corrupts itself beyond belief by continuing to harbor the same Nazi it has covered up for 20 years. And while I believe in universal salvation, this comes as close as anything I have ever heard to being the unforgivable sin.”
Kinsolving said the announcement by the Orthodox Church in America, Trifa’s denomination, that he “will not attend meetings or take part in the council’s work” is “hardly anything new because Trifa during the past two years usually has been absent.”
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