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WCC blasts U.S. for preventing event in Cuba

The head of the World Council of Churches is blasting U.S. policy on Cuba for preventing a scheduled meeting of the Latin American Council of Churches in the communist island nation.

WCC General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit said the cold war–era policy in­fringes on religious freedom.

The dispute arose when a Miami branch of an Ecuadorian bank froze a deposit of $101,000 that was made by the Latin American church group’s headquarters in Quito, Ecuador, according to the WCC, which represents 560 million Protestant and Orthodox Christians.

Bishop Ting dies at 97; led Chinese churches

Bishop K. H. Ting, the longtime leader of China’s official Protestant Church, died in Nanjing on November 22 at age 97. Ting drew high praise from the World Council of Churches and the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary, among others.

Ting had his admirers and detractors internationally for maintaining government ties for the “registered” churches in the communist-run nation. Many conservative Protestant churches and ministries in the West supported instead the so-called house churches in China whose members suffered more persecution.