MOSCOW — From March 28 to 31, the president of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), Pastor John Upton from Virginia, and the president of the European Baptist Federation, Pastor Hans Guderian from Berlin, took part in the annual conference of the Euro-Asiatic Federation of the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists in Moscow. There also was a meeting with the Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church on March 29.
Participating in that meeting in the Moscow residence of the Patriarch were Upton and Guderian along with Aleksey Smirnov, the president of the Baptist Unions of Russia, Vyacheslav Nesteruk from Ukraine and Victor Krutko from Belarus. Those participating from the side of the Russian Orthodox Church were Kirill, Abbot Filaret and Archpriest Dimitry Sizonenko.
In his opening words, the patriarch spoke of his concern regarding the questioning of fundamental moral values in the life of the individual and society regarding marriage and the family. Whereas secularization originally had the goal of liberation from oppression and the struggle for religious freedom and human rights, today there is a serious questioning of all values and an extensive total relativism which will not accept any kind of normative truth.
In his response, Upton thanked the patriarch for his firm position on the unalterable truth of the gospel. He noted in addition that in a world in which fundamental principles are subjected to erosion to the extent that even absolute truths become relative, the trusted biblical witness of good and evil, of Christian hope and of marriage and family must be affirmed in order to resist the proliferation of abortion and various social afflictions.
Upton and Guderian expressed their hope that the conversation between Baptist and Orthodox believers in Russia might be continued.
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